Bodo Moeller writes:
> On Tue, Nov 23, 1999 at 04:50:33PM -0500, James B. Huber wrote:
>
> > I show the RSA patent 4,405,829 (expires Sept. 29th 2000) and
> > the "idea" patent 5,214,703 (good for another 10 years) but don't
> > find a patent on rc5 ????
>
> Try 5,835,600 or 5,724,428 (I haven't looked closely which one is actually RC5).
Got it,
YES ! RSA has again shot itself in the foot. Understand that
I'm not a lawyer either, however as a Manager of Software development
I have always been told by the legal boys, you MUST enforce a
copyright and/or patent in ALL cases or you can't enforce it in any.
US law requires equal treatment to all.
To that end, RSA placed RC2 & RC5 in the "public domain" when
they contributed it to the US Government backed PKCS efforts with
the following statments taken right from their web-site:
4. The "Intellectual Property Issues" section shall also include
text stating the Contributor's intent for licensing its patents and
trademarks (existing and future) that may apply to the contribution.
The text may take one of the following forms (following the practice
of IEEE Standards):
a) A general disclaimer to the effect that the Contributor will
not enforce any of its present or future patent(s) or trademarks
whose use would be required to implement the Contribution or
portions thereof if incorporated in PKCS documents.
b) A statement that a license will be made available to all
applicants without compensation.
c) A statement that a license will be made available to all
applicants under reasonable rates, with reasonable terms
and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair discrimination.
RSA when proposing it's replacemanet to the NSA for DES initially
elected for option "A", then tried to play a game and claim option
"B".....Now officially is trying to claim option "C".
Oops, that doesn't work in a court of law and would explain
why RSA has failed to ever enforce this (MD2/5) or the more
common RSA patents....They can't.
To further shoot their own foot off, they included MD5 in the
public releases of RSAREF a full 4 years BEFORE they were granted
a patent and included no claims as to a patent being pending.
And the RSAREF license forces them option "B" for commercial use.
They are refusing to even speak to anyone regarding it....Cool.
That means to me.....it's mine to use as long as I make a formal
in writing statement to the registered offices of their company
they must either produce the original license and terms or forfit
their right to do so.
We will be making it official in writing just as soon as the
legal types draw up the papers. This covers only our company but
anyone else in the US should be free to do the same.
Cheers !
--
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James B. Huber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Genesis Controls, Inc. (V/O) (407) 671-0820
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