1 |
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 08:41:21PM +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
2 |
> >>>>> On Mon, 20 Sep 2021, Robin H Johnson wrote: |
3 |
> |
4 |
> > RedHat's legal team clearly know something there that they aren't |
5 |
> > disclosing the details of publicly, because the patches said the |
6 |
> > patents expire in 2020, but when I asked off-list if EC could be |
7 |
> > re-enabled based on the expiry dates in the files, they claimed that |
8 |
> > patent issues were still present, without giving any detail. |
9 |
> |
10 |
> If there are remaining patent issues then they should be able to support |
11 |
> their claim by facts, like a patent number. Why would this be difficult, |
12 |
> or what reason would they have not to disclose it? |
13 |
I don't have any answer from them, but my own research did turn up a few |
14 |
current patents around EC (sorted by expiry): |
15 |
|
16 |
US8462944B2 exp 2021-12-26 |
17 |
US8189772B2 exp 2023-05-28 |
18 |
US9160530B2 exp 2024-10-28 |
19 |
US8213605B2 exp 2025-11-14 |
20 |
US10756893B2 exp 2026-01-23 |
21 |
US10284370B2 exp 2026-03-03 |
22 |
US20100023775A1 exp 2031-08-02 |
23 |
US8631240B2 exp 2031-08-02 |
24 |
US8572367B2 exp 2031-12-25 |
25 |
US8918648B2 exp 2032-01-31 |
26 |
US10079673B2 exp 2032-02-15 ** not specifically EC, more general about Entropy |
27 |
US9800418B2 exp 2035-07-17 |
28 |
|
29 |
IANAL, but the difficult question is: does any open-source end up |
30 |
implementing those algorithms? |
31 |
|
32 |
-- |
33 |
Robin Hugh Johnson |
34 |
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer |
35 |
E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
36 |
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85 |
37 |
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136 |