SSL patent challenge

[Ralf Hauser]

FYI
>
> In Stambler v RSA Security Inc (01-CV-65) the US District Court
> of Delaware
> found that RSA Security <http://www.rsasecurity.com/> and VeriSign
> <http://www.verisign.com/> did not infringe patents held by Leon
> Stambler, a
> retired Florida electrical engineer. The jury took less than
> three hours to
> reach a decision in what was to have been the first of two rounds in a
> battle over rights to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. SSL is an
> industry-standard protocol based on public key cryptography and digital
> certificates, widely used to authenticate e-commerce websites, and to
> protect the confidentiality and integrity of information communicated
> between browsers and websites. Stambler developed his patented transaction
> authentication technology years before Netscape Communications
> <http://home.netscape.com/main2.adp> developed and patented SSL.
> In 2001 he
> filed a lawsuit alleging that RSA's products BSAFE, SecurID and Keon, and
> VeriSign's Secure Site and Payflow - all of which use SSL technology -
> infringed several of his patents.  At the first of two trials
> ordered by US
> District Judge Sue Robinson, the jury found that Stambler's patent claims
> did not literally match the methods of SSL. Previously, Robinson had
> determined that in relation to another of Stambler's patents, the
> defendants' were not contravening the doctrine of equivalents.
> The doctrine
> is designed to prevent would-be infringers from making
> insignificant changes
> to an invention in order to avoid the literal language of an existing
> patent. A second trial focusing on the validity of Stambler's patents was
> due to begin on March 11 in Delaware. However, before the trial began,
> Robinson dismissed as moot the defendants' counterclaims seeking to
> invalidate Stambler's patents.  Stambler is expected to appeal the first
> trial's non-infringement verdict.


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