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Re: RSA claiming trademark on all uses of "RSA" to describe

> 
> At 03:49 PM 4/1/99 -0500, Michael Richardson wrote:
> >  So, who has actually received the letter then?
> 
> Burt Kaliski, who (humorously enough) works for RSA Labs. See 
> <http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/letters/SecurityDynamics.jpg> for the 
> actual copy of the letter.
> 
> The letter is typically vague on what RSA (now Security Dynamics) might or 
> might not do in the future with the trademark. It doesn't sound in the 
> least bit threatening, and it all but admits that it is way too late to do 
> anything about IEEE 1363.
> 
> Again, I think we can let this one slide until they tell us the want to do 
> something definite. At that point, we can decide whether they have any real 
> legal argument, and can move forwards then.
> 
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium
> 
	I just did a search of the trademarks for RSA via the
	government trademarks web site: http://trademarks.uspto.gov

	and there are the following ones registered:

	RSAREF
	RC2
	RC4
	RSASIGN
	RSACHECK
	RSA Data Security, Inc. The Keys to Privacy and Authentication


	The IEEE letter notes:

	"The terms "RSA public key", "RSA private key", and "RSA Key Pair"
	in section 8.1.3 of the draft standard and elsewhere may similarly
	be affectd by such protection".

	Hence it appears that either RSA hasn't filed trademarks on
	the above three "marks".

	Looking for all the trademarks owned by Security Dynamics
	pertaining to the RSA prefix we find:

	ACE/Sentry
	RSASecurPC
	SecurityDynamics,
	WEBID
	Thinking Ahead Put us Ahead
	SOFTID
	ACE/Server
	SecurID
	SecurityDynamics,
	ACE Access Control Encryption


	Hence I did not find any Registered trademarks by either
	RSA or Security Dynamics pertaining to the following three
	names:	"RSA public key", "RSA private key", and "RSA Key Pair"

	Maybe this falls under some close or approximately similar clause.

-- Bill (fisher@sgi.com)
References: