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Re[2]: Modular approach to key management




Ran:

IEEE 802.10 has a letter on file from PKP that states that their patents 
will be made available on a fair, equitable, nondiscriminatory, and 
non-onerous basis.  Based on this letter, work on IEEE 802 is proceeding.

Under the IEEE rules, the working group is responsible for getting such a 
letter, but the determination concerning whether or not the term are 
actually fair, equitable, nondiscriminatory, and non-onerous is not left to 
the working group.  This decision is made my lawyers at IEEE if anyone 
raises an issue during the ballot process.

Crypto systems based on elliptic curves are likely to be standardized by 
the IEEE P1363 group.  They claim that no patents are infringed by these 
algorithms.

Russ


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Modular approach to key management
Author:  atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil
Date:    11/14/94 09:29


Hugh, Russ, Hugo, Ashar, and others,

  I'd like to know _exactly_ what the patent status is of each of the
proposals on the table.  By this I mean that I'd like to see the 
following become crystal clear:

1) Is any aspect of the proposal patented (including patents pending) ? 
1b) If so, which parts are patented by which patent numbers and who
 are the inventors and assignees ?

2) If some prior agreement has been reached that the patent will be 
made available to all comers at no cost (e.g. as part of IEEE 802 
work), that would be worth knowing about.  Otherwise, under what terms 
are the patents available ?

 We have had strongly negative history within the past year in
the Mobile IP working group where people knew they had patents but did 
not disclose those patents up front.  The IETF way is to disclose the 
existence of patents IMMEDIATELY and to the ENTIRE working group, not 
just the chairpeople.  I'd really like to avoid hidden patent issues 
in this work.  Even if (2) isn't immediately answerable, it is very 
important to openly disclose (1) and (1b) immediately and to the 
entire list.

 I think most folks are aware of the Diffie-Hellman and RSA
patents.  I believe the use of the RSA-Ref software package legally 
excludes individuals (but not vendors) from having to pay monetary 
license fees on those 2 patents.

Regards,

Ran
atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil