[4427] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [John Gilmore ] RSA claiming trademark on all uses of "RSA" to describe algorithm
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sameer Parekh)
Thu Apr 1 21:08:07 1999
From: Sameer Parekh <sameer@bpm.ai>
In-Reply-To: <199904012159.NAA17050@terra.com21.com> from Steve Schear at "Apr 1, 1999 1:58:38 pm"
To: schear@lvcm.com (Steve Schear)
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 18:00:55 -0800 (PST)
Cc: perry@piermont.com, cryptography@c2.net
This seems silly to me. Any claim by RSA that one was
violating their trademark would not stand up in court. This, actually
reminds me of the RC4 situation I ran into in 1996.
> At 02:09 PM 4/1/99 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> >> Security Dynamics Technologies, Inc. has sent a letter to the P1363
> >> working group regarding trademark protection of the RSA name. The letter
> >> is now available from our patents page
> >> http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/patents.html
> >> or directly at
> >> http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/letters/SecurityDynamics.jpg
> >
> >Now that their patent is getting ready to expire (next fall), RSA is
> >trying to crack down on anyone who refers to the use of the
> >algorithm by calling it "RSA". They don't mind if you call it "type
> >1" or something else meaningless and irrelevant, though. This is a
> >new low for a company known for self-serving legal bluster.
>
> I should think that the approach taken by generic pharmaceuticals, 'compare
> with Brand X,' would also suffice to get around RSA's trademark issue.
>
> --Steve
>
--
sameer
