Re: more info from talk at MIT yesterday.

[smb@research.att.com]

	 Bill Sommerfeld says:
	 > They also confirmed Tom Knight's suspicions about what they're going
	 > to do when someone reverse engineers the chip and publishes the
	 > Skipjack algorithm & the family key: they've got a patent applicatio
	n
	 > filed, under a secrecy order; if the algorithm is published, they'll
	 > lift the secrecy order and have the patent issued, and use that to g
	o
	 > after anyone making a compatible version.

	 Since when can the government patent its work? I thought that works
	 produced by government agencies could not be copyrighted or patented.

The government can patent things, but not copyright them.

	 In any case, they cannot refuse to license a patent, so this isn't
	 real protection anyway. (The hope behind people patenting things they
	 may release in the future is to make it commercially less attractive,
	 not to utterly prevent use.)

Why can't they refuse to license a patent?