Digicash Patents, patent-expiry landrushes

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 11:34 AM 7/31/03 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>Some people expected a "land rush" when the main RSA patents expired
>several years ago. Parties were even thrown. The land rush never
>happened.

Wrong.  RSA algorithm is used freely now in US designs, knowing it is no
longer
patented.  I didn't go to any party, but I flipped a bit in my cranial
store indicating
that it could be used freely.  And this is/was critical, because whereas
a block
cipher (eg IDEA) can be replaced, RSA can't in some apps.

As someone currently rolling his own RSA by setting up the bignums in C,
it is a relief
to be free of patent issues.  I don't believe this would have been the
case before
the expiry.  (This is for embedded devices, I'm not reinventing a
protocol wheel.)

I'll predict a similarly invisible "land rush" when ECC patents run out,
assuming
that its patented and also considered useful when the supposed patents
expire.