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Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rpi!psinntp!psinntp!crynwr!nelson From: nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Software Patents: Promotion of science and the useful Distribution: world Message-ID: <721540573snx@crynwr.com> References: <1992Nov11.005634.4977@netcom.com> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 03:56:13 GMT Organization: Crynwr Software Lines: 48 In article <1992Nov11.005634.4977@netcom.com> mcgregor@netcom.com writes: In article <1992Nov5.181513.4564@mdd.comm.mot.com> kelsey@mdd.comm.mot.com (Joe Kelsey) writes: >I think we need to change the argument from using the word benefits to >using the Constitutional terms: promotion of science and the useful >arts. Then the question becomes, how has the RSA patent promoted >science and the useful arts? The answer: the policies of PKP have >STIFLED progress on implementation of public key cryptography in the >USA. This is not at all obvious. RSA has implemented public key crypto systems and brought them to market. Why aren't they adopted? Other companies and individuals could have developed other innovations in Private Key cryptography, or enhanced PK cryptography using improvement patents. Where are all those other people. Maybe there is another innovation as startlingly unexpected as PUBLIC key cryptography was in the 70's. Maybe there could be KEYLESS Cryptography. Where is this innovation? Stifled, because you can't do anything in the Public Key world without impinging on the RSA patent. > So this patent does not fall under the purpose stated in the >Constitution. If it contributes to "progress" (not promotion) in the sciences and useful arts it is. Now you can buy a PKE system, before RSA you could not. Your assumption is that a PKE system would not exist had RSA not invented it, and further, that they only invented it with the incentive of the patent system. The problem with the patent system in general is that it grants a 17-year monopoly on an *idea*. The assumption is that the patent holder will use that monopoly to bring product to market. Yet marketing requires a completely different skill set from invention. The patent system may just as well be keeping products from the market by denying access to good ideas from skillful marketers. In fact, I know of a person who invented a new method for extracting honey from combs without removing them from the hives. This person, while brilliant in some ways, is a sheer dunce in others. In particular, he refuses to work with anyone else because he doesn't want them to steal his ideas. So his ideas languish in the grip of the patent system... -russ <nelson@crynwr.com> What canst *thou* say? Crynwr Software Crynwr Software sells packet driver support. 11 Grant St. 315-268-1925 Voice | LPF member - ask me about Potsdam, NY 13676 315-268-9201 FAX | the harm software patents do.