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11556Srgrimes 21556Srgrimes $FreeBSD: head/usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES 105236 2002-10-16 12:42:15Z charnier $ 31556Srgrimes 41556SrgrimesFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 51556Srgrimes 61556Srgrimes>From vn Fri Dec 2 18:05:27 1988 71556SrgrimesSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA 81556SrgrimesNewsgroups: sci.crypt 91556Srgrimes 101556Srgrimes# Illegitimi noncarborundum 111556Srgrimes 121556SrgrimesPatents are a tar pit. 131556Srgrimes 141556SrgrimesA good case can be made that most are just a license to sue, and nothing 151556Srgrimesis illegal until a patent is upheld in court. 161556Srgrimes 171556SrgrimesFor example, if you receive netnews by means other than 'nntp', 181556Srgrimesthese very words are being modulated by 'compress', 191556Srgrimesa variation on the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm. 201556Srgrimes 211556SrgrimesOriginal Ziv-Lempel is patent number 4,464,650, and the more powerful 221556SrgrimesLZW method is #4,558,302. Yet despite any similarities between 'compress' 231556Srgrimesand LZW (the public-domain 'compress' code was designed and given to the 241556Srgrimesworld before the ink on the Welch patent was dry), no attorneys from Sperry 251556Srgrimes(the assignee) have asked you to unplug your Usenet connection. 261556Srgrimes 271556SrgrimesWhy? I can't speak for them, but it is possible the claims are too broad, 281556Srgrimesor, just as bad, not broad enough. ('compress' does things not mentioned 291556Srgrimesin the Welch patent.) Maybe they realize that they can commercialize 301556SrgrimesLZW better by selling hardware implementations rather than by licensing 311556Srgrimessoftware. Again, the LZW software delineated in the patent is *not* 321556Srgrimesthe same as that of 'compress'. 331556Srgrimes 3436150ScharnierAt any rate, court-tested software patents are a different animal; 3536150Scharniercorporate patents in a portfolio are usually traded like baseball cards 3636150Scharnierto shut out small fry rather than actually be defended before 371556Srgrimesnon-technical juries. Perhaps RSA will undergo this test successfully, 3899110Sobrienalthough the grant to "exclude others from making, using, or selling" 3999110Sobrienthe invention would then only apply to the U.S. (witness the 401556SrgrimesGenentech patent of the TPA molecule in the U.S. but struck down 411556Srgrimesin Great Britain as too broad.) 421556Srgrimes 431556SrgrimesThe concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 441556Srgrimesthat one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 451556SrgrimesApparently this all changed in Diamond v. Diehr (1981) when the U. S. Supreme 461556SrgrimesCourt reversed itself. 471556Srgrimes 481556SrgrimesScholars should consult the excellent article in the Washington and Lee 491556SrgrimesLaw Review (fall 1984, vol. 41, no. 4) by Anthony and Colwell for a 501556Srgrimescomprehensive survey of an area which will remain murky for some time. 511556Srgrimes 5217987SpeterUntil the dust clears, how you approach ideas which are patented depends 5317987Speteron how paranoid you are of a legal onslaught. Arbitrary? Yes. But 541556Srgrimesthe patent bar the the CCPA (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) 5517987Speterthanks you for any uncertainty as they, at least, stand to gain 5617987Speterfrom any trouble. 571556Srgrimes 5817987Speter=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 5917987SpeterFrom: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> 6017987SpeterSubject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA (actually 'compress' patents) 6117987Speter 6217987Speter In article <2042@eos.UUCP> you write: 6397909Stjr >The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb 641556Srgrimes >that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". 6517987Speter 661556SrgrimesA rule of thumb that has never been completely valid, as any chemical 671556Srgrimesengineer can tell you. (Chemical processes were among the earliest patents, 681556Srgrimesas I recall.) 691556Srgrimes 701556Srgrimes ah yes -- i date myself when relaying out-of-date advice from elderly 71213811Sobrien attorneys who don't even specialize in patents. one other interesting 721556Srgrimes class of patents include the output of optical lens design programs, 731556Srgrimes which yield formulae which can then fairly directly can be molded 74199629Sjilles into glass. although there are restrictions on patenting equations, 751556Srgrimes the "embedded systems" seem to fly past the legal gauntlets. 761556Srgrimes 771556Srgrimes anyway, I'm still learning about intellectual property law after 781556Srgrimes several conversations from a Unisys (nee sperry) lawyer re 'compress'. 791556Srgrimes 801556Srgrimes it's more complicated than this, but they're letting (oral 811556Srgrimes communication only) software versions of 'compress' slide 821556Srgrimes as far as licensing fees go. this includes 'arc', 'stuffit', 831556Srgrimes and other commercial wrappers for 'compress'. yet they are 841556Srgrimes signing up licensees for hardware chips. Hewlett-Packard 851556Srgrimes supposedly has an active vlsi project, and Unisys has 861556Srgrimes board-level LZW-based tape controllers. (to build LZW into 871556Srgrimes a disk controller would be strange, as you'd have to build 881556Srgrimes in a filesystem too!) 891556Srgrimes 901556Srgrimes it's byzantine 911556Srgrimes that Unisys is in a tiff with HP regarding the patents, 921556Srgrimes after discovering some sort of "compress" button on some 931556Srgrimes HP terminal product. why? well, professor Abraham Lempel jumped 941556Srgrimes from being department chairman of computer science at technion in 951556Srgrimes Israel to sperry (where he got the first patent), but then to work 961556Srgrimes at Hewlett-Packard on sabbatical. the second Welch patent 971556Srgrimes is only weakly derivative of the first, so they want chip 981556Srgrimes licenses and HP relented. however, everyone agrees something 99215567Sjilles like the current Unix implementation is the way to go with 100215567Sjilles software, so HP (and UCB) long ago asked spencer Thomas and i to sign 101215567Sjilles off on copyright permission (although they didn't need to, it being pd). 102215567Sjilles Lempel, HP, and Unisys grumbles they can't make money off the 103215567Sjilles software since a good free implementation (not the best -- 104215567Sjilles i have more ideas!) escaped via Usenet. (Lempel's own pascal 10590111Simp code was apparently horribly slow.) 10690111Simp i don't follow the IBM 'arc' legal bickering; my impression 1071556Srgrimes is that the pc folks are making money off the archiver/wrapper 1081556Srgrimes look/feel of the thing [if ms-dos can be said to have a look and feel]. 1091556Srgrimes 11097815Stjr now where is telebit with the compress firmware? in a limbo 11197815Stjr netherworld, probably, with sperry still welcoming outfits 11297815Stjr to sign patent licenses, a common tactic to bring other small fry 11397815Stjr into the fold. the guy who crammed 12-bit compress into the modem 11497815Stjr there left. also what is transpiring with 'compress' and sys 5 rel 4? 1151556Srgrimes beats me, but if sperry got a hold of them on these issues, 1161556Srgrimes at&t would likely re-implement another algorithm if they 11790111Simp thought 'compress' infringes. needful to say, i don't think 11890111Simp it does after the above mentioned legal conversation. 1191556Srgrimes my own beliefs on whether algorithms should be patentable at all 1201556Srgrimes change with the weather. if the courts finally nail down 1211556Srgrimes patent protection for algorithms, academic publication in 12297815Stjr textbooks will be somewhat at odds with the engineering world, 12397815Stjr where the textbook codes will simply be a big tease to get 12497815Stjr money into the patent holder coffers... 12597815Stjr 12697815Stjr oh, if you implement LZW from the patent, you won't get 1271556Srgrimes good rates because it doesn't mention adaptive table reset, 1281556Srgrimes lack thereof being *the* serious deficiency of Thomas' first version. 12990111Simp 13090111Simp now i know that patent law generally protects against independent 131215303Sjilles re-invention (like the 'xor' hash function pleasantly mentioned 1321556Srgrimes in the patent [but not the paper]). 1331556Srgrimes but the upshot is that if anyone ever wanted to sue us, 13497815Stjr we're partially covered with 13597815Stjr independently-developed twists, plus the fact that some of us work 13697815Stjr in a bureaucratic morass (as contractor to a public agency in my case). 13797815Stjr 13897815Stjr quite a mess, huh? I've wanted to tell someone this stuff 139194516Sjilles for a long time, for posterity if nothing else. 1401556Srgrimes 141153245Sstefanfjames 142153245Sstefanf 143153245Sstefanf