[1225] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Attorneys: RSA patent invalid
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lucky Green)
Sun Jul 20 13:03:56 1997
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 01:34:38 -0700
To: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>, cryptography@c2.net
From: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
In-Reply-To: <v03007802aff70b3d16fb@[198.115.179.81]>
At 07:24 PM 7/19/97 -0500, Vin McLellan wrote:
> Also, RSADSI really _worked_ that patent. It rarely licensed the
>"concept," it usually provided the whole implementation, along with
>alternatives and complementary code, packaged in a toolkit -- at a price
>and under T&Cs that their big customers must have considered fair and
>equitable.
Assuming one equates "cheaper than litigation" with "fair and equitable".
Fact is, RSA licensing terms used to be so outrageous that they kept the
technology from being deployed in any meaningful way for years. It wasn't
until PGP popularized RSA, under constant threats of litigation by Bidzos,
that RSADSI came around and offered more reasonable terms.
There is a reason why RSADSI is disliked by so many players in the
industry. And somehow I doubt it is due to their licensing terms being fair
and equitable. :-)
To quote a key person at a major RSA licensee: "We would love to give RSA
the boot tomrrow... But unfortunately, there is no PKI in place that
doesn't require RSA".
--Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
PGP encrypted mail preferred.
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