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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:16 ADT
Mike Rosing (eresrch@msn.fullfeed.com)
Fri, 10 Jul 1998 16:18:09 -0500 (CDT)
On Fri, 10 Jul 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>
> staym@accessdata.com writes:
> > If I take an existing crypto algoritm and implement it over elliptic
> > curves, has it changed enough to not be covered by the copyright of the
> > original?
>
> a) algorithms can't be copyrighted.
> b) elliptic curves are only suitable for certain algorithms.
> c) if you meant "patent", it depends on the patent.
copyright covers source and object code, so if you rewrite something it's
completely different. If you are talking about patents, then it depends
on how poorly the patent was written and how good your lawyers are compared to
the other guys. As far as I can tell, most patents on crypto algorithms
which can be converted to EC math won't violate the patents. That's
because most claims show the algorithm using modulo exponential (integer)
math. There are a few patents which are based on ECC explicitly, it
would be worth while to double check what ever algorithm you are looking
at doesn't fall into those categories.
Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:16 ADT