On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:36:47 -0800, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > Aren't those curves owned by some company though, and one can't use > them without paying license fees? I can't believe I just wrote that > sentence. >
There's some info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_patents It doesn't seem to indicate that the curves themselves are under patent, and it would seem wrong for a government institution such as NIST to recommend curves for which license fees must be paid. (Of course just because it seems wrong doesn't mean that it's not the case.) The ECC algorithms themselves are a more contentious matter. RSA thinks that the original algorithms due to Koblitz-Miller are not under patent, but that certain implementation techniques and newer algorithms are, see http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2325 Best, Alex -- Alex Ghitza -- Lecturer in Mathematics -- The University of Melbourne -- Australia -- http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~aghitza/ -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
