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Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:9209 misc.int-property:552 comp.unix.bsd:5851 Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!virtualnews.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@nyu.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,comp.unix.bsd,alt.suit.att-bsdi Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors. Message-ID: <10987.Sep3008.57.4692@virtualnews.nyu.edu> Date: 30 Sep 92 08:57:46 GMT References: <1992Sep28.202521.28752@rwwa.COM> <1992Sep28.231823.8385@pony.Ingres.COM> <WCS.92Sep29233331@budweiser.ATT.COM> Organization: IR Lines: 22 In article <WCS.92Sep29233331@budweiser.ATT.COM> wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (Bill Stewart +1-908-949-0705) writes: > I'm not particularly thrilled with the idea of protecting algorithm > discoveries, but in the case of RSA, the patent process has encouraged > them to make their discoveries available to the public. > Would they have done so even without patent protection? Probably, > but who knows. We do! History shows that in the case of RSA the inventors published their invention _without_ help from the patent process. Facts: 1. Martin Gardner published RSA in the August 1977 Scientific American. 2. The RSA patent was not filed until December 1977. By waiting until December 1977 to file a patent, MIT lost any chance it might have had for foreign patent rights. Is there any evidence at all that the researchers were considering patent protection six months before the patent was actually filed? The general public-key idea, which had been discovered and published in 1975 and 1976, wasn't the subject of a patent application until October 1977. ---Dan