Re: [Cfrg] Patents and the new elliptic curves

["Blumenthal, Uri - 0558 - MITLL" <[e-mail]>]

On 9/17/14, 13:30 , "Michael Hamburg" <[e-mail]> wrote:

>…….But I continue to hope that other people with experience in
>implementations and patents will contribute their wisdom on what patents
>might apply to the latest batch of curves.  This is not legally required,
>and I don’t expect to receive legally rigorous analyses.  It also
>probably has no bearing on which curve should be selected, at least to
>the degree that any patents can be worked around.

If a curve is selected because it appears to offer significant performance
benefits over other (or over the currently used) curves, and then it turns
out that a patent prevents you from realizing those performance
advantages…?

>But avoiding patents in this area is critically important for anyone who
>ends up actually using these curves.

Yes.

>I remind you that the inspiration for this thread was the possibility
>that Microsoft’s ‘907 patent applies to their NUMS software, but that
>nobody noticed until now because they were intentionally ignoring patent
>concerns.  You can walk through a minefield blindfolded, but it may not
>be the best strategy to avoid getting blown up.  So: does anyone see
>anything?

IANAL. I hope that when Microsoft review is concluded, they’d post the
results here. I don’t expect (or want) this group to make a decision until
then.

My main concern is what other patents (held by other parties) might be
lurking there.



>>On Sep 17, 2014, at 5:01 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker
>><[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> I am not a lawyer. But even if I was, I would not be your lawyer. And
>> that makes a huge difference.
>> 
>> Expecting any party to issue a free legal opinion on this subject is
>> futile. Microsoft, Google and all the major companies have spent
>> several billion dollars in the past few years on settlements and
>> damages in a long list of patent suits, most of which are utterly
>> devoid of any merit whatsoever.
>> 
>> One of the patent cases I was involved in was based on a particularly
>> twisted interpretation of a patent claim that the patent examiner had
>> specifically excluded in the patent prosecution history.
>> 
>> My concern here is not the risk of a lawsuit against my employer, it
>> is the risk of a lawsuit against my customers.
>> 
>> 
>> That said, the ECC patents are very different to the usual software
>> patents. These are not 'do it on the Internet' type 'inventions' and
>> they aren't submarine patents with claims on stuff invented by other
>> people in continuations after the application was first filed. These
>> are patents making claims about very specific inventions. And the
>> original patents on the principal inventions were filed between 1985
>> and 1990.
>> 
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