Rijndael & Hitachi

[Bram Cohen]

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, Vin McLellan wrote:
>
>          Myself, I wouldn't blame NIST if they factored, as you suggest, 
> avoidance of endless legal hassles into their decision-making process.

With the current state of patents, it is literally impossible to do
anything with a computer without violating a whole slew of patents whose
validity is rather dubious. 

The only thing you can really do is politely tell anyone who bothers you
about 'violating their patents' that you'll let them know if you decide
you want to pay them off to avoid litigation, then forget about the matter
unless you're actually forced to show up in court.

NIST threatening a big scary anti-trust lawsuit against anyone who tries
to pull something with the AES is quite laudable and more than I'd have
expected them to do.

-Bram Cohen