1246149Ssjg 2246149Ssjg $FreeBSD$ 3246149Ssjg 4246149SsjgFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 5246149Ssjg 6246149Ssjg>From vn Fri Dec 2 18:05:27 1988 7246149SsjgSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA 8246149SsjgNewsgroups: sci.crypt 9246149Ssjg 10246149Ssjg# Illegitimi noncarborundum 11246149Ssjg 12246149SsjgPatents are a tar pit. 13246149Ssjg 14246149SsjgA good case can be made that most are just a license to sue, and nothing 15246149Ssjgis illegal until a patent is upheld in court. 16246149Ssjg 17246149SsjgFor example, if you receive netnews by means other than 'nntp', 18246149Ssjgthese very words are being modulated by 'compress', 19246149Ssjga variation on the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm. 20246149Ssjg 21246149SsjgOriginal Ziv-Lempel is patent number 4,464,650, and the more powerful 22246149SsjgLZW method is #4,558,302. Yet despite any similarities between 'compress' 23246149Ssjgand LZW (the public-domain 'compress' code was designed and given to the 24246149Ssjgworld before the ink on the Welch patent was dry), no attorneys from Sperry 25246149Ssjg(the assignee) have asked you to unplug your Usenet connection. 26246149Ssjg 27246149SsjgWhy? I can't speak for them, but it is possible the claims are too broad, 28246149Ssjgor, just as bad, not broad enough. ('compress' does things not mentioned 29246149Ssjgin the Welch patent.) Maybe they realize that they can commercialize 30246149SsjgLZW better by selling hardware implementations rather than by licensing 31246149Ssjgsoftware. Again, the LZW software delineated in the patent is *not* 32246149Ssjgthe same as that of 'compress'. 33246149Ssjg 34246149SsjgAt any rate, court-tested software patents are a different animal; 35246149Ssjgcorporate patents in a portfolio are usually traded like baseball cards 36246149Ssjgto shut out small fry rather than actually be defended before 37246149Ssjgnon-technical juries. Perhaps RSA will undergo this test successfully, 38246149Ssjgalthough the grant to "exclude others from making, using, or selling" 39246149Ssjgthe invention would then only apply to the U.S. (witness the 40246149SsjgGenentech patent of the TPA molecule in the U.S. but struck down 41246149Ssjgin Great Britain as too broad.) 42246149Ssjg 43246149SsjgThe concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 44246149Ssjgthat one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 45246149SsjgApparently this all changed in Diamond v. Diehr (1981) when the U. S. Supreme 46246149SsjgCourt reversed itself. 47246149Ssjg 48246149SsjgScholars should consult the excellent article in the Washington and Lee 49246149SsjgLaw Review (fall 1984, vol. 41, no. 4) by Anthony and Colwell for a 50246149Ssjgcomprehensive survey of an area which will remain murky for some time. 51246149Ssjg 52250837SsjgUntil the dust clears, how you approach ideas which are patented depends 53250837Ssjgon how paranoid you are of a legal onslaught. Arbitrary? Yes. But 54246149Ssjgthe patent bar of the CCPA (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) 55246149Ssjgthanks you for any uncertainty as they, at least, stand to gain 56246149Ssjgfrom any trouble. 57246149Ssjg 58246149Ssjg=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 59246149SsjgFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 60246149SsjgSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA (actually 'compress' patents) 61246149Ssjg 62246149Ssjg In article <2042@eos.UUCP> you write: 63246149Ssjg >The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 64246149Ssjg >that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 65246149Ssjg 66246149SsjgA rule of thumb that has never been completely valid, as any chemical 67246149Ssjgengineer can tell you. (Chemical processes were among the earliest patents, 68246149Ssjgas I recall.) 69246149Ssjg 70246149Ssjg ah yes -- i date myself when relaying out-of-date advice from elderly 71246149Ssjg attorneys who don't even specialize in patents. one other interesting 72246149Ssjg class of patents include the output of optical lens design programs, 73246149Ssjg which yield formulae which can then fairly directly can be molded 74246149Ssjg into glass. although there are restrictions on patenting equations, 75246149Ssjg the "embedded systems" seem to fly past the legal gauntlets. 76246149Ssjg 77246149Ssjg anyway, I'm still learning about intellectual property law after 78246149Ssjg several conversations from a Unisys (nee sperry) lawyer re 'compress'. 79246149Ssjg 80250837Ssjg it's more complicated than this, but they're letting (oral 81246149Ssjg communication only) software versions of 'compress' slide 82250837Ssjg as far as licensing fees go. this includes 'arc', 'stuffit', 83249033Ssjg and other commercial wrappers for 'compress'. yet they are 84246149Ssjg signing up licensees for hardware chips. Hewlett-Packard 85246149Ssjg supposedly has an active vlsi project, and Unisys has 86246149Ssjg board-level LZW-based tape controllers. (to build LZW into 87246149Ssjg a disk controller would be strange, as you'd have to build 88246149Ssjg in a filesystem too!) 89246149Ssjg 90246149Ssjg it's byzantine 91246149Ssjg that Unisys is in a tiff with HP regarding the patents, 92246149Ssjg after discovering some sort of "compress" button on some 93246149Ssjg HP terminal product. why? well, professor Abraham Lempel jumped 94246149Ssjg from being department chairman of computer science at technion in 95246149Ssjg Israel to sperry (where he got the first patent), but then to work 96246149Ssjg at Hewlett-Packard on sabbatical. the second Welch patent 97246149Ssjg is only weakly derivative of the first, so they want chip 98246149Ssjg licenses and HP relented. however, everyone agrees something 99246149Ssjg like the current Unix implementation is the way to go with 100246149Ssjg software, so HP (and UCB) long ago asked spencer Thomas and i to sign 101246149Ssjg off on copyright permission (although they didn't need to, it being pd). 102246149Ssjg Lempel, HP, and Unisys grumbles they can't make money off the 103246149Ssjg software since a good free implementation (not the best -- 104246149Ssjg i have more ideas!) escaped via Usenet. (Lempel's own pascal 105246149Ssjg code was apparently horribly slow.) 106246149Ssjg i don't follow the IBM 'arc' legal bickering; my impression 107246149Ssjg is that the pc folks are making money off the archiver/wrapper 108246149Ssjg look/feel of the thing [if ms-dos can be said to have a look and feel]. 109246149Ssjg 110246149Ssjg now where is telebit with the compress firmware? in a limbo 111246149Ssjg netherworld, probably, with sperry still welcoming outfits 112246149Ssjg to sign patent licenses, a common tactic to bring other small fry 113246149Ssjg into the fold. the guy who crammed 12-bit compress into the modem 114246149Ssjg there left. also what is transpiring with 'compress' and sys 5 rel 4? 115246149Ssjg beats me, but if sperry got a hold of them on these issues, 116246149Ssjg at&t would likely re-implement another algorithm if they 117246149Ssjg thought 'compress' infringes. needful to say, i don't think 118250837Ssjg it does after the above mentioned legal conversation. 119250837Ssjg my own beliefs on whether algorithms should be patentable at all 120250837Ssjg change with the weather. if the courts finally nail down 121250837Ssjg patent protection for algorithms, academic publication in 122250837Ssjg textbooks will be somewhat at odds with the engineering world, 123250837Ssjg where the textbook codes will simply be a big tease to get 124250837Ssjg money into the patent holder coffers... 125250837Ssjg 126250837Ssjg oh, if you implement LZW from the patent, you won't get 127250837Ssjg good rates because it doesn't mention adaptive table reset, 128250837Ssjg lack thereof being *the* serious deficiency of Thomas' first version. 129250837Ssjg 130250837Ssjg now i know that patent law generally protects against independent 131250837Ssjg re-invention (like the 'xor' hash function pleasantly mentioned 132250837Ssjg in the patent [but not the paper]). 133250837Ssjg but the upshot is that if anyone ever wanted to sue us, 134250837Ssjg we're partially covered with 135250837Ssjg independently-developed twists, plus the fact that some of us work 136250837Ssjg in a bureaucratic morass (as contractor to a public agency in my case). 137250837Ssjg 138250837Ssjg quite a mess, huh? I've wanted to tell someone this stuff 139250837Ssjg for a long time, for posterity if nothing else. 140250837Ssjg 141250837Ssjgjames 142246149Ssjg 143246149Ssjg