Re: [Patents] Cryptographic patent... and research. + Belgium

[David GLAUDE <dglaudemailing@gmx.net>]

Carsten Svaneborg wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 July 2003 23:13, David GLAUDE wrote:
>
> > And he was explicitly talking about RSA saying that it took
> > brillant mind years do discover something that changed
> > completely the shape of cryptography.
>
> The real question is why should society grant RSA protection
> against improvement by even more brilliant minds?

The question might be... will brilliant mind continue to search if they 
know the only reward for finding a nice cryptographic method is fame and 
glory (not women and money).

Does anybody know if there was a rule about Patent in the AES 
competition (won by Belgian with Rijndael). I know they have fame and 
glory. But they did not get any (extra) money for what they did...

Also they did produce source code in some open source licence.

> > One thing he said is that research on a specific algorithme seems to
> > stop as soon a cryptographic algorithme is patented. Because no
> > one is interested to use it anymore (also it cost a lot).
>
> Which is interesting. Does cryptographic researchers go through
> patents to check where they are free to innovate?

Well, at least the one I talked too did read a few patent. But maybe not 
to check where it was free to innovate. He may have read a few because 
he did the preparation job for making a patent on a protocol he found...

He did not ask for a patent because of the price... and because once you 
have the patent peaple try to avoid using it... because of the price.

So I asked if he learned more from patent than from standard scientific 
literature. And he said he could have learn the same.

Then I asked, when you find something worst of interest, do you publish 
or keep it for yourself waiting to make sure if it is worst a patent. 
And I had no real answer because because the conversation turned to "Yes 
we are push to get patent even if there is no money for getting them".

This lead me to know if one of the ITRE amendement about "grace period" 
is good or not. It can solve the "Do I talk about my idea or not?" but 
it will introduce new question like "Do I read this article or do I wait 
until the end of the grace period?". So the peer test of your idea 
before asking for a patent might not work at all and the grace period is 
yet another problem for standard body and research.

David GLAUDE

PS: Another patent story related to Patent, Cryptography and Belgium (it 
seems that my country produce a lot a cryptographic work). [this part is 
a resent from another mailing list]

Last month I had a talk with another Belgian computer scientist.

He told me he had an useless patent first 13 years ago from Belgium, 
then he got it extended in the US and by EPO to Europe.

That patent was about a cryptographic algorithme but may have been 
turned into an "aparatus". Actually the patent had to be translated and 
reworded to pass the EPO test (he told me).

He told me how unhappy he was with the "Patent system that is like a 
Mafia" (his words). He told me he did not write any of it's own patent 
description but it was clearly PURE Software. The Belgian version was 
writen by a patent expert, the EPO version was writen by yet an other 
expert since the inventor does not practice english.

He spended a lot of money to "protect" but failed to continue to pay so 
it should now be in "public domain" he told me.

If 13 years ago Belgium was already granting software patent... I want 
to know if Belgium is more like UK or more like Germany with respect to 
no software patent or "computer program 'as such'".

Here are the patent number he gave me (for the currious only):

    First Patent in Belgium: be08900467 (28/04/1989)
    US Patent: US 5.010.573
    European Patent: EP 0395 618 B1 (24/01/1990)

David GLAUDE

--
Don't let the computer/expert control the election
Information for Belgium in french: http://www.poureva.be/