Re: Non-US and patents
On Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 18:20:45 +0200, Peter Makholm wrote:
> +/* NIST Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) effort. The algorithm */
> +/* is subject to Patent action by IBM, who intend to offer royalty */
> +/* free use if a Patent is granted. */
>
> This is OK to put into non-us/main. Not because free use is granted
> but because we don't care about us-patent rules in non-us.
How sure are we IBM is only pursuing a patent in the US?
[IDEA]
> If the above only covers patents and not the copyright I could put it
> into non-us/main?
IDEA is patented in most of Europe, where non-US is located.
> If the copyright for the code mentions the above it should go into
> non-us/non-free?
Probably, or use a free IDEA implementation (e.g. from the Pike crypto
toolkit, or from mcrypt).
> Does the european patent mean anything to the package?
I've not seen a concensus opinion about patent issues in Europe affecting
non-US. Personally, I think that patent-encumbered algorithms should not be
considered free, except where the patent is licensed in a liberal way
(allowing free use in free software).
> (The CAST-256 thingy goes into non-free until I know what the CAST-256
> conditions is. That is no problem.)
CAST-128 was specifically not patented to allow it to become an IETF
standard. I hope that if it's patented, its licensing condititions will be
favourable.
Ray
--
J.H.M. Dassen | RUMOUR Believe all you hear. Your world may
jdassen@wi.LeidenUniv.nl | not be a better one than the one the blocks
| live in but it'll be a sight more vivid.
| - The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
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