1105236Scharnier 2105236Scharnier $FreeBSD: releng/10.2/usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES 227458 2011-11-11 22:27:09Z eadler $ 3105236Scharnier 41590SrgrimesFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 51590Srgrimes 61590Srgrimes>From vn Fri Dec 2 18:05:27 1988 71590SrgrimesSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA 81590SrgrimesNewsgroups: sci.crypt 91590Srgrimes 101590Srgrimes# Illegitimi noncarborundum 111590Srgrimes 121590SrgrimesPatents are a tar pit. 131590Srgrimes 141590SrgrimesA good case can be made that most are just a license to sue, and nothing 151590Srgrimesis illegal until a patent is upheld in court. 161590Srgrimes 171590SrgrimesFor example, if you receive netnews by means other than 'nntp', 181590Srgrimesthese very words are being modulated by 'compress', 191590Srgrimesa variation on the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm. 201590Srgrimes 211590SrgrimesOriginal Ziv-Lempel is patent number 4,464,650, and the more powerful 221590SrgrimesLZW method is #4,558,302. Yet despite any similarities between 'compress' 231590Srgrimesand LZW (the public-domain 'compress' code was designed and given to the 241590Srgrimesworld before the ink on the Welch patent was dry), no attorneys from Sperry 251590Srgrimes(the assignee) have asked you to unplug your Usenet connection. 261590Srgrimes 271590SrgrimesWhy? I can't speak for them, but it is possible the claims are too broad, 281590Srgrimesor, just as bad, not broad enough. ('compress' does things not mentioned 291590Srgrimesin the Welch patent.) Maybe they realize that they can commercialize 301590SrgrimesLZW better by selling hardware implementations rather than by licensing 311590Srgrimessoftware. Again, the LZW software delineated in the patent is *not* 321590Srgrimesthe same as that of 'compress'. 331590Srgrimes 341590SrgrimesAt any rate, court-tested software patents are a different animal; 351590Srgrimescorporate patents in a portfolio are usually traded like baseball cards 361590Srgrimesto shut out small fry rather than actually be defended before 371590Srgrimesnon-technical juries. Perhaps RSA will undergo this test successfully, 381590Srgrimesalthough the grant to "exclude others from making, using, or selling" 391590Srgrimesthe invention would then only apply to the U.S. (witness the 401590SrgrimesGenentech patent of the TPA molecule in the U.S. but struck down 411590Srgrimesin Great Britain as too broad.) 421590Srgrimes 431590SrgrimesThe concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 441590Srgrimesthat one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 451590SrgrimesApparently this all changed in Diamond v. Diehr (1981) when the U. S. Supreme 461590SrgrimesCourt reversed itself. 471590Srgrimes 481590SrgrimesScholars should consult the excellent article in the Washington and Lee 491590SrgrimesLaw Review (fall 1984, vol. 41, no. 4) by Anthony and Colwell for a 501590Srgrimescomprehensive survey of an area which will remain murky for some time. 511590Srgrimes 521590SrgrimesUntil the dust clears, how you approach ideas which are patented depends 531590Srgrimeson how paranoid you are of a legal onslaught. Arbitrary? Yes. But 54227458Seadlerthe patent bar of the CCPA (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) 551590Srgrimesthanks you for any uncertainty as they, at least, stand to gain 561590Srgrimesfrom any trouble. 571590Srgrimes 581590Srgrimes=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 591590SrgrimesFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 601590SrgrimesSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA (actually 'compress' patents) 611590Srgrimes 621590Srgrimes In article <2042@eos.UUCP> you write: 631590Srgrimes >The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 641590Srgrimes >that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 651590Srgrimes 661590SrgrimesA rule of thumb that has never been completely valid, as any chemical 671590Srgrimesengineer can tell you. (Chemical processes were among the earliest patents, 681590Srgrimesas I recall.) 691590Srgrimes 701590Srgrimes ah yes -- i date myself when relaying out-of-date advice from elderly 711590Srgrimes attorneys who don't even specialize in patents. one other interesting 721590Srgrimes class of patents include the output of optical lens design programs, 731590Srgrimes which yield formulae which can then fairly directly can be molded 741590Srgrimes into glass. although there are restrictions on patenting equations, 751590Srgrimes the "embedded systems" seem to fly past the legal gauntlets. 761590Srgrimes 77105236Scharnier anyway, I'm still learning about intellectual property law after 78105236Scharnier several conversations from a Unisys (nee sperry) lawyer re 'compress'. 791590Srgrimes 801590Srgrimes it's more complicated than this, but they're letting (oral 811590Srgrimes communication only) software versions of 'compress' slide 821590Srgrimes as far as licensing fees go. this includes 'arc', 'stuffit', 831590Srgrimes and other commercial wrappers for 'compress'. yet they are 84105236Scharnier signing up licensees for hardware chips. Hewlett-Packard 85105236Scharnier supposedly has an active vlsi project, and Unisys has 86105236Scharnier board-level LZW-based tape controllers. (to build LZW into 871590Srgrimes a disk controller would be strange, as you'd have to build 881590Srgrimes in a filesystem too!) 891590Srgrimes 901590Srgrimes it's byzantine 91105236Scharnier that Unisys is in a tiff with HP regarding the patents, 921590Srgrimes after discovering some sort of "compress" button on some 93105236Scharnier HP terminal product. why? well, professor Abraham Lempel jumped 941590Srgrimes from being department chairman of computer science at technion in 95105236Scharnier Israel to sperry (where he got the first patent), but then to work 96105236Scharnier at Hewlett-Packard on sabbatical. the second Welch patent 971590Srgrimes is only weakly derivative of the first, so they want chip 98105236Scharnier licenses and HP relented. however, everyone agrees something 99105236Scharnier like the current Unix implementation is the way to go with 100105236Scharnier software, so HP (and UCB) long ago asked spencer Thomas and i to sign 1011590Srgrimes off on copyright permission (although they didn't need to, it being pd). 102105236Scharnier Lempel, HP, and Unisys grumbles they can't make money off the 1031590Srgrimes software since a good free implementation (not the best -- 104105236Scharnier i have more ideas!) escaped via Usenet. (Lempel's own pascal 1051590Srgrimes code was apparently horribly slow.) 106105236Scharnier i don't follow the IBM 'arc' legal bickering; my impression 1071590Srgrimes is that the pc folks are making money off the archiver/wrapper 1081590Srgrimes look/feel of the thing [if ms-dos can be said to have a look and feel]. 1091590Srgrimes 1101590Srgrimes now where is telebit with the compress firmware? in a limbo 1111590Srgrimes netherworld, probably, with sperry still welcoming outfits 1121590Srgrimes to sign patent licenses, a common tactic to bring other small fry 113105236Scharnier into the fold. the guy who crammed 12-bit compress into the modem 1141590Srgrimes there left. also what is transpiring with 'compress' and sys 5 rel 4? 1151590Srgrimes beats me, but if sperry got a hold of them on these issues, 1161590Srgrimes at&t would likely re-implement another algorithm if they 1171590Srgrimes thought 'compress' infringes. needful to say, i don't think 118105236Scharnier it does after the above mentioned legal conversation. 1191590Srgrimes my own beliefs on whether algorithms should be patentable at all 1201590Srgrimes change with the weather. if the courts finally nail down 1211590Srgrimes patent protection for algorithms, academic publication in 1221590Srgrimes textbooks will be somewhat at odds with the engineering world, 1231590Srgrimes where the textbook codes will simply be a big tease to get 1241590Srgrimes money into the patent holder coffers... 1251590Srgrimes 126105236Scharnier oh, if you implement LZW from the patent, you won't get 1271590Srgrimes good rates because it doesn't mention adaptive table reset, 128105236Scharnier lack thereof being *the* serious deficiency of Thomas' first version. 1291590Srgrimes 1301590Srgrimes now i know that patent law generally protects against independent 1311590Srgrimes re-invention (like the 'xor' hash function pleasantly mentioned 1321590Srgrimes in the patent [but not the paper]). 1331590Srgrimes but the upshot is that if anyone ever wanted to sue us, 1341590Srgrimes we're partially covered with 1351590Srgrimes independently-developed twists, plus the fact that some of us work 136105236Scharnier in a bureaucratic morass (as contractor to a public agency in my case). 1371590Srgrimes 138105236Scharnier quite a mess, huh? I've wanted to tell someone this stuff 1391590Srgrimes for a long time, for posterity if nothing else. 1401590Srgrimes 1411590Srgrimesjames 1421590Srgrimes 143