[Cryptography] To what is Anderson referring here?

[Kevin W. Wall]

On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> wrote:
> On Jun 4, 2014, at 4:03 AM, fukami <lists at foo.io> wrote:
[snip]
> The results are of both theoretical and practical interest.  From a
> theoretical point of view, it would inform, with actual data, the debate
> about the public interest issues in patents:  If the only real effect of
> crypto patents is to make the subject of the patent unavailable to the
> public for the patent's lifetime, then patenting of such material does not
> fulfill the public interest goals of making inventions broadly available.
> From a practical point of view, if it can be shown that patents in this area
> are essentially worthless - you pay to get a piece of paper, but no one will
> buy what you're selling - it might be easier to convince people to freely
> license their patents (assuming they get them at all).

OT wrt TC, but as long as we're discussing crypto patents, wouldn't it
depend on how viable the alternatives are? For instance, if you wanted
to signature blinding, didn't Chaum's and Brand's patents about cover
all other conceivable alternatives? Of course maybe there was not that
much of a market for signature blinding once the digital cash market
spun out. Of course, in general, I'd agree with you, but I think it's usually
because there's some other way--albeit not as efficient--to achieve
similar outcomes.

-kevin
-- 
Blog: http://off-the-wall-security.blogspot.com/
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