Re: [Fsfe-uk] Cambridge swpat

[Simon Waters]

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James Heald wrote:
>
>   http://www.aful.org/wws/arc/patents/2003-06/msg00034.html
>
> Was this the note you were thinking of ?  He was going to send it to
> members of the JURI committee.

Hmm, I think a couple of items mentioned there are complete
non-starters, exemptions for free software, well 7% of the revenue from
GNU Chess isn't going to persuade people to patent (and thus reveal) any
winning tree search improvements.

Someone did offer money for enhancements once, but I decided he was
probably barking mad, and unlikely to ever pay. But anyone could have
done those improvements (if they can decipher the C), so would anyone
working on free software might be liable to a 7% patent tax?

Similarly what is so great about the RSA algorithmn? Specifically the
concept of public key encryption is regarded as not patentable (or
copyrightable). Interoperability with a patented encryption algorithmn
without a patent, well I suppose such a protocol might be theoretically
possible - I guess if the methods were "commutatitve", you could
implement the locked box scenario more literally. I can see this working
with XOR* ;-)

Of course the UK intelligence services claim public key encryption was
independently invented here, but it is possible it leaked I guess.

I know we have discussed these topics before, but now is a good time to
have the arguments to hand.

 Simon

* For future reference you saw the idea here first ;-)
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