Re: Ada & Encryption / Compression

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <dewar.857857945@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> Has this patent been successfuly litigated? Remember that the existence
> of a patent per se does NOT mean that license fees have to be paid. They
> have to be paid only if the patent is valid. The fact that the patent
> office accepts a patent is an a priori suggestion that at least omeone
> in the patent office thought it might be valid, but until it is litigated
> no one can say for sure. For my taste the RSA claims are *awfully* broad,
> but I have not followed the progress of this patent in any detail.

I don't know exactly how you define "litigated", but several cases have
been filed and none have gone to trial but instead have ended in out of
court settlements which involved royalties being paid to RSADSI.  While
the claims may seem overbroad to a computer person such as yourself, it
would appear there is a different opinion from lawyers who actually got
involved in specific cases.

I am not at all saying that the points involved in the cases which were
filed are the same as the points which you find overbroad.   I have not
read the patent but it may contain language which might be construed as
applicable to Elliptic Curve techniques. I do not know that cases which
have been filed involved Elliptic Curve techniques.

Larry Kilgallen