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RE: Looking for statement of patent issues re ISAKMP/Oakley

Paul,
	RSA Data Security owns exclusive rights to the
Schnorr patent and RSA's lawyers claim that any implementation
of DSS would infringe this patent.  The US government
disagrees with this interpretation.  The issue has not
been tested in court.
	The current shipping version of BSAFE (3.0) from RSA
contains an implementation of DSS.  The BSAFE 4.0 release,
which is currently in beta, contains all the extra
algorithms needed to fully comply with the FIPS that defines
DSS.  For example, BSAFE 4.0 includes the SHA1 based random
number generator described in the FIPS document.
	Most vendors of IPSec products have already licensed
BSAFE, so the possible patent issues are not a problem.
              --Bob Baldwin
                Technical Director E-Commerce
                RSA Data Security

P.S.  For all of you who want to flame me or RSA for having
patents or for having lawyers, go ahead.  After my first
year at RSA I got used to being flamed whenever I post.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Paul Koning [SMTP:pkoning@xedia.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, March 11, 1998 8:48 AM
> To:	ipsec@tis.com
> Subject:	Looking for statement of patent issues re ISAKMP/Oakley
> 
> I was putting together a memo on licensing needs for IPSec products,
> and looked in the various drafts for guidance.  From what I
> understand, IETF standards-track documents are supposed to contain a
> section discussing any patent issues that may pertain to the
> technology in question.
> 
> A number of the transform specs contain such sections (e.g., DES and
> IDEA).  Somewhat to my surprise, the ISAKMP/Oakley documents do not.
> 
> I also looked in other places (specifically, Scheier) for input.  It
> mentioned the well-known fact that RSA is subject to patents and
> licenses.  No confusion there.  
> 
> Scheier also discussed the situation for DSS.  As I read it, it sounds
> like the patent situation there is muddled.  In particular, he
> mentions a U.S. Government patent (D. Kravitz) supposedly generally
> licensed at no cost -- but also mentions that claims have been made
> that the Schorr patent applies as well.
> 
> Question:  Does anyone have any further insight on this topic?  And
> could this be added to the document?
> 
> 	paul 
> 
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