ECC patents?

[Alexander Klimov]

Hi.

ECC is known since 1985 but seems to be absent in popular free
software packages, e.g., neither gnupg nor openssl has it (even if the
relevant patches were created). It looks like the main reason is some
patent uncertainty in this area.

An internet research shows that Certicom claims to hold quite a few
patents in the area. Some people claims that it is still possible to
implement ECC without violating any patent, because neither ECC in
general, nor ECDH, nor ECElGamal are patented. Yet another POV is that
although algorithms themselves are not patented the curves (especially
whose standardized by NIST) are patented (probably, only for GF(p) and
GF(2^n)-based curves are not).

Does anyone know a good survey about ECC patent situation?

-- 
Regards,
ASK

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