Re: [Cfrg] PAKE selection process: status after Phase 1 and following steps

[Dan Harkins <[e-mail]>]

On 7/17/19 12:37 AM, Peter Gutmann wrote:
>
> Dan Harkins <[e-mail]> writes:
>
>
> >SPEKE was patented with U.S. Patent 6,226,383. That patent expired in 
> March
> >2007. There are no other patents that are known to apply to SPEKE.
>
> Didn't all of { Bellovin and Merritt, Jablon, Wu } apply, so you couldn't
> safely use any of them until all three had expired?  Granted, all of 
> them have
> expired now, but historically that's always been a PITA with using the 
> *EKE's,
> three patent holders all considered they had the sole patent on the
> technology, and like monotheistic religions going with one implicitly
> condemned you to the other two's version of hell.  In fact the *EKE patent
> mess was often cited as (yet another) example of the patent system's
> brokenness...

   Yes, they have all expired so the matter should be mute. But in the 
interest
of accuracy I'll respond.

   I'm not a patent lawyer but I didn't consider the EKE or SRP patents to
apply to SPEKE so that's why I wrote what I wrote. Jablon may have thought
the opposite applied-- that the SPEKE patent applied to EKE and/or SRP-- but
that's a different matter. Basically, patents made PAKEs a minefield that
everyone wanted to avoid. Happily that should all be behind us now.

   regards,

   Dan.