diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES')
| -rw-r--r-- | usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES | 139 |
1 files changed, 139 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES b/usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c28c9c --- /dev/null +++ b/usr.bin/compress/doc/NOTES @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +From: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> + +>From vn Fri Dec 2 18:05:27 1988 +Subject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA +Newsgroups: sci.crypt + +# Illegitimi noncarborundum + +Patents are a tar pit. + +A good case can be made that most are just a license to sue, and nothing +is illegal until a patent is upheld in court. + +For example, if you receive netnews by means other than 'nntp', +these very words are being modulated by 'compress', +a variation on the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm. + +Original Ziv-Lempel is patent number 4,464,650, and the more powerful +LZW method is #4,558,302. Yet despite any similarities between 'compress' +and LZW (the public-domain 'compress' code was designed and given to the +world before the ink on the Welch patent was dry), no attorneys from Sperry +(the assignee) have asked you to unplug your Usenet connection. + +Why? I can't speak for them, but it is possible the claims are too broad, +or, just as bad, not broad enough. ('compress' does things not mentioned +in the Welch patent.) Maybe they realize that they can commercialize +LZW better by selling hardware implementations rather than by licensing +software. Again, the LZW software delineated in the patent is *not* +the same as that of 'compress'. + +At any rate, court-tested software patents are a different animal; +corporate patents in a portfolio are usually traded like baseball cards +to shut out small fry rather than actually be defended before +non-technical juries. Perhaps RSA will undergo this test successfully, +although the grant to "exclude others from making, using, or selling" +the invention would then only apply to the U.S. (witness the +Genentech patent of the TPA molecule in the U.S. but struck down +in Great Britain as too broad.) + +The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb +that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". +Apparently this all changed in Diamond v. Diehr (1981) when the U. S. Supreme +Court reversed itself. + +Scholars should consult the excellent article in the Washington and Lee +Law Review (fall 1984, vol. 41, no. 4) by Anthony and Colwell for a +comprehensive survey of an area which will remain murky for some time. + +Until the dust clears, how you approach ideas which are patented depends +on how paranoid you are of a legal onslaught. Arbitrary? Yes. But +the patent bar the the CCPA (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) +thanks you for any uncertainty as they, at least, stand to gain +from any trouble. + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +From: James A. Woods <jaw@eos.arc.nasa.gov> +Subject: Re: Looking for C source for RSA (actually 'compress' patents) + + In article <2042@eos.UUCP> you write: + >The concept is still exotic for those who learned in school the rule of thumb + >that one may patent "apparatus" but not an "idea". + +A rule of thumb that has never been completely valid, as any chemical +engineer can tell you. (Chemical processes were among the earliest patents, +as I recall.) + + ah yes -- i date myself when relaying out-of-date advice from elderly + attorneys who don't even specialize in patents. one other interesting + class of patents include the output of optical lens design programs, + which yield formulae which can then fairly directly can be molded + into glass. although there are restrictions on patenting equations, + the "embedded systems" seem to fly past the legal gauntlets. + + anyway, i'm still learning about intellectual property law after + several conversations from a unisys (nee sperry) lawyer re 'compress'. + + it's more complicated than this, but they're letting (oral + communication only) software versions of 'compress' slide + as far as licensing fees go. this includes 'arc', 'stuffit', + and other commercial wrappers for 'compress'. yet they are + signing up licensees for hardware chips. hewlett-packard + supposedly has an active vlsi project, and unisys has + board-level lzw-based tape controllers. (to build lzw into + a disk controller would be strange, as you'd have to build + in a filesystem too!) + + it's byzantine + that unisys is in a tiff with hp regarding the patents, + after discovering some sort of "compress" button on some + hp terminal product. why? well, professor abraham lempel jumped + from being department chairman of computer science at technion in + israel to sperry (where he got the first patent), but then to work + at hewlett-packard on sabbatical. the second welch patent + is only weakly derivative of the first, so they want chip + licenses and hp relented. however, everyone agrees something + like the current unix implementation is the way to go with + software, so hp (and ucb) long ago asked spencer thomas and i to sign + off on copyright permission (although they didn't need to, it being pd). + lempel, hp, and unisys grumbles they can't make money off the + software since a good free implementation (not the best -- + i have more ideas!) escaped via usenet. (lempel's own pascal + code was apparently horribly slow.) + i don't follow the ibm 'arc' legal bickering; my impression + is that the pc folks are making money off the archiver/wrapper + look/feel of the thing [if ms-dos can be said to have a look and feel]. + + now where is telebit with the compress firmware? in a limbo + netherworld, probably, with sperry still welcoming outfits + to sign patent licenses, a common tactic to bring other small fry + into the fold. the guy who crammed 12-bit compess into the modem + there left. also what is transpiring with 'compress' and sys 5 rel 4? + beats me, but if sperry got a hold of them on these issues, + at&t would likely re-implement another algorithm if they + thought 'compress' infringes. needful to say, i don't think + it does after the abovementioned legal conversation. + my own beliefs on whether algorithms should be patentable at all + change with the weather. if the courts finally nail down + patent protection for algorithms, academic publication in + textbooks will be somewhat at odds with the engineering world, + where the textbook codes will simply be a big tease to get + money into the patent holder coffers... + + oh, if you implement lzw from the patent, you won't get + good rates because it doesn't mention adaptive table reset, + lack thereof being *the* serious deficiency of thomas' first version. + + now i know that patent law generally protects against independent + re-invention (like the 'xor' hash function pleasantly mentioned + in the patent [but not the paper]). + but the upshot is that if anyone ever wanted to sue us, + we're partially covered with + independently-developed twists, plus the fact that some of us work + in a bureacratic morass (as contractor to a public agency in my case). + + quite a mess, huh? i've wanted to tell someone this stuff + for a long time, for posterity if nothing else. + +james + |
