1 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier 2 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 3 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 4 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes>From vn Fri Dec 2 18:05:27 1988 5 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA 6 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesNewsgroups: sci.crypt 7 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 8 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes# Illegitimi noncarborundum 9 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 10 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesPatents are a tar pit. 11 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 12 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesA good case can be made that most are just a license to sue, and nothing 13 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesis illegal until a patent is upheld in court. 14 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 15 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesFor example, if you receive netnews by means other than 'nntp', 16 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesthese very words are being modulated by 'compress', 17 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesa variation on the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm. 18 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 19 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesOriginal Ziv-Lempel is patent number 4,464,650, and the more powerful 20 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesLZW method is #4,558,302. Yet despite any similarities between 'compress' 21 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesand LZW (the public-domain 'compress' code was designed and given to the 22 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesworld before the ink on the Welch patent was dry), no attorneys from Sperry 23 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes(the assignee) have asked you to unplug your Usenet connection. 24 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 25 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesWhy? I can't speak for them, but it is possible the claims are too broad, 26 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesor, just as bad, not broad enough. ('compress' does things not mentioned 27 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesin the Welch patent.) Maybe they realize that they can commercialize 28 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesLZW better by selling hardware implementations rather than by licensing 29 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimessoftware. Again, the LZW software delineated in the patent is *not* 30 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesthe same as that of 'compress'. 31 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 32 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesAt any rate, court-tested software patents are a different animal; 33 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimescorporate patents in a portfolio are usually traded like baseball cards 34 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesto shut out small fry rather than actually be defended before 35 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesnon-technical juries. Perhaps RSA will undergo this test successfully, 36 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesalthough the grant to "exclude others from making, using, or selling" 37 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesthe invention would then only apply to the U.S. (witness the 38 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesGenentech patent of the TPA molecule in the U.S. but struck down 39 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesin Great Britain as too broad.) 40 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 41 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesThe concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 42 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesthat one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 43 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesApparently this all changed in Diamond v. Diehr (1981) when the U. S. Supreme 44 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesCourt reversed itself. 45 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 46 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesScholars should consult the excellent article in the Washington and Lee 47 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesLaw Review (fall 1984, vol. 41, no. 4) by Anthony and Colwell for a 48 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimescomprehensive survey of an area which will remain murky for some time. 49 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 50 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesUntil the dust clears, how you approach ideas which are patented depends 51 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimeson how paranoid you are of a legal onslaught. Arbitrary? Yes. But 52 *14517324SEitan Adlerthe patent bar of the CCPA (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) 53 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesthanks you for any uncertainty as they, at least, stand to gain 54 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesfrom any trouble. 55 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 56 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 57 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 58 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA (actually 'compress' patents) 59 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 60 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes In article <2042@eos.UUCP> you write: 61 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes >The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 62 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes >that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 63 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 64 9b50d902SRodney W. GrimesA rule of thumb that has never been completely valid, as any chemical 65 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesengineer can tell you. (Chemical processes were among the earliest patents, 66 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesas I recall.) 67 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 68 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes ah yes -- i date myself when relaying out-of-date advice from elderly 69 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes attorneys who don't even specialize in patents. one other interesting 70 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes class of patents include the output of optical lens design programs, 71 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes which yield formulae which can then fairly directly can be molded 72 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes into glass. although there are restrictions on patenting equations, 73 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes the "embedded systems" seem to fly past the legal gauntlets. 74 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 75 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier anyway, I'm still learning about intellectual property law after 76 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier several conversations from a Unisys (nee sperry) lawyer re 'compress'. 77 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 78 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes it's more complicated than this, but they're letting (oral 79 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes communication only) software versions of 'compress' slide 80 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes as far as licensing fees go. this includes 'arc', 'stuffit', 81 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes and other commercial wrappers for 'compress'. yet they are 82 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier signing up licensees for hardware chips. Hewlett-Packard 83 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier supposedly has an active vlsi project, and Unisys has 84 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier board-level LZW-based tape controllers. (to build LZW into 85 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes a disk controller would be strange, as you'd have to build 86 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes in a filesystem too!) 87 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 88 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes it's byzantine 89 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier that Unisys is in a tiff with HP regarding the patents, 90 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes after discovering some sort of "compress" button on some 91 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier HP terminal product. why? well, professor Abraham Lempel jumped 92 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes from being department chairman of computer science at technion in 93 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier Israel to sperry (where he got the first patent), but then to work 94 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier at Hewlett-Packard on sabbatical. the second Welch patent 95 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes is only weakly derivative of the first, so they want chip 96 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier licenses and HP relented. however, everyone agrees something 97 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier like the current Unix implementation is the way to go with 98 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier software, so HP (and UCB) long ago asked spencer Thomas and i to sign 99 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes off on copyright permission (although they didn't need to, it being pd). 100 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier Lempel, HP, and Unisys grumbles they can't make money off the 101 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes software since a good free implementation (not the best -- 102 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier i have more ideas!) escaped via Usenet. (Lempel's own pascal 103 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes code was apparently horribly slow.) 104 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier i don't follow the IBM 'arc' legal bickering; my impression 105 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes is that the pc folks are making money off the archiver/wrapper 106 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes look/feel of the thing [if ms-dos can be said to have a look and feel]. 107 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 108 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes now where is telebit with the compress firmware? in a limbo 109 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes netherworld, probably, with sperry still welcoming outfits 110 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes to sign patent licenses, a common tactic to bring other small fry 111 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier into the fold. the guy who crammed 12-bit compress into the modem 112 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes there left. also what is transpiring with 'compress' and sys 5 rel 4? 113 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes beats me, but if sperry got a hold of them on these issues, 114 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes at&t would likely re-implement another algorithm if they 115 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes thought 'compress' infringes. needful to say, i don't think 116 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes it does after the above mentioned legal conversation. 117 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes my own beliefs on whether algorithms should be patentable at all 118 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes change with the weather. if the courts finally nail down 119 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes patent protection for algorithms, academic publication in 120 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes textbooks will be somewhat at odds with the engineering world, 121 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes where the textbook codes will simply be a big tease to get 122 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes money into the patent holder coffers... 123 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 124 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier oh, if you implement LZW from the patent, you won't get 125 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes good rates because it doesn't mention adaptive table reset, 126 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier lack thereof being *the* serious deficiency of Thomas' first version. 127 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 128 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes now i know that patent law generally protects against independent 129 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes re-invention (like the 'xor' hash function pleasantly mentioned 130 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes in the patent [but not the paper]). 131 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes but the upshot is that if anyone ever wanted to sue us, 132 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes we're partially covered with 133 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes independently-developed twists, plus the fact that some of us work 134 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier in a bureaucratic morass (as contractor to a public agency in my case). 135 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 136 6dc4364cSPhilippe Charnier quite a mess, huh? I've wanted to tell someone this stuff 137 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes for a long time, for posterity if nothing else. 138 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 139 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimesjames 140 9b50d902SRodney W. Grimes 141