Sternbot on RSA

[Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>]

Vin has now cloned his vigorous defense of the RSA patent to several
Usenet newsgroups, posting his "summary" of the discussion.

Sternlight now leaps in, to add his two cents worth.

In talk.politics.crypto David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com> wrote:

> I simply cannot believe the post by Cordian below. His argument seem to
> be: 

Good morning, David.  We've missed you on the Cypherpunks List. 

> 1. I am right and the court is wrong.

No, David.  Vin's argument is that since the patents were upheld in court,
no knowlege of the specific algorithms or methods used to construct the
patented entity pre-dated the work which led to the patent. 

In point of fact, such things do not automatically invalidate patents. 
Certainly the concept of trapdoor functions, their cryptographic utility,
and that multiplication of primes was such a function, were known prior to
the development of the RSA Public Key Cryptosystem.  I vaguely recall that
encipherment by modular exponentiation has also been published as an
algorithm, albeit prior to the recognition that it had utility in
constructing public key systems. 

> 2. I vaguely recall a paper that might have been prior art.

Certainly the notion that the difficulty of factoring composites could
be employed in the construction of cryptographically useful things was
prior art.  The description of encryption by modular exponentiation I 
recall would have been additional prior art. 

> 3. It is disingenuous to say there has been no invalidating prior art
> even though the court has found the patent valid. 

There is a huge difference between "prior art" and "invalidating prior
art" under patent law.  Indeed, to invalidate the patent, it would have
been necessary not only to find a description of the mathematical methods
used in the construction of the RSA algorithm, but also a claim for the
specific use for secure communication over insecure data links. 

> 4. Cylink's arguments must be right even though they lost in court.

Some of Cylink's points were factually accurate.  A system which permits
the patenting of applied mathematics, which many engineers could have
independently derived, is hardly likely to stun us with a brilliant
interpretation of the various shades of meaning surrounding such claims
and counterclaims. 

Again, losing in court does not equate to ones facts being in error, any
more than it equates to the mathematics being patented being unknown prior
to their incarnation in the patented application.

> 5. RSA won because nobody could afford to litigate against them, even
> though Cylink did. 

RSADSI's aggressive litigation posture discouraged people from ignoring
their patent, and given that the patent could be licensed for much less
than a lengthy court fight, kept litigation to a minimum.  Cylink was
pretty much the sole exception to this, and that was a legal fight
internal to PKP.

> 6. Anyone can patent anything and nobody could afford to oppose them
> (N.B. Presumably not IBM, not DEC, not DuPont, ..oh well, you get the
> idea) 

Yes, David.  Practically anything can be patented.  The power of patents
is in defending them, not in applying for them, or in receiving them.

> 7. Rich, smart companies with big legal departments license bogus
> patents rather than litigating. 

Well, that depends on how you define bogus.  I consider patenting applied
math to be bogus.  Your mileage may vary. 

> 8. Someone who opposes me is a troll.

Someone who responds to a one line comment about the mathematical
underpinnings of RSA being previously known, with several multipage essays
whose central thesis is that such a claim cannot possible be true, because
the patent would have been invalidated by the courts, is a troll who
either understands nothing about how patents work, or is blowing a foghorn
on behalf of the patent holder.

> 9. If someone takes the time to oppose me, someone must be funding him.

Vin has already outed himself as someone who has done work for RSADSI.  He
has vociferously defended various key recovery schemes implemented in
their products against critics.  This, combined with his rabid insistance
that the RSA patent is something novel and unique, does equate to what
some of us might describe as a "vested interest" in the matter, directly
funded or not. 

> 10. The patent office never refuses patents on "method and apparatus"
> except in the case of perpetual motion machines. 

Patent examiners generally rely only upon the material presented with the
patent application when reviewing it, and expect people to do their own
searches, and correctly cite related patents.  Litigation is generally the
means by which patents are challenged, not by the patent office refusing
them, except in extrordinary circumstances, perpetual motion machines
being one well-known example. 

> 11. Security Dynamics is paying for those who oppose me.

I merely asked if Vin intended to bill them for the time he spent
writing his rants.  A rhetorical question. 

> 12. Such opposition is "a tirade".

Suggesting that I would have to retire my nym after criticizing the RSA
patent and taking several pages to say a paragraph of material certainly
qualifies as a tirade in my book, especially when combined with a lot of
irrelevent innuendo unrelated to the topic being discussed.

> 13. No corporations are buying products with GAK, key recovery, etc. 
> (N.B.  in That is what "no corporate demand" means). 

To an economist, perhaps.  It would be more accurate to say that demand as
a function of whether such features are included is a pretty flat
function. 

> 14. Someone who opposes stronger escrow/GAK/key recovery than RSA is
> offering must be suspect. 

Your point here eludes me.

> I could go on ...

And you usually do, and on, and on, and on...

> but it seems to me, knowing nothing about the parties involved and
> having no views on their personalities, that on the basis of the post
> below Cordian is uh, um, er, a few clauses short of a syllogism. 

I simply believe that patents on applied math are inappropriate.  Given
that they are allowed, it seems silly to cite the fact that the courts
uphold them as evidence for anything, particularly claims that they are 
new, novel, and non-obvious.

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