[Cryptography] Patents and technology

[Robert L. Wilson]

On 6/19/2014 11:00 AM, cryptography-request at metzdowd.com wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 1:55 PM, ianG<iang at iang.org>  wrote:
>
>> >On 16/06/2014 15:45 pm, Jerry Leichter wrote:
>>> > >On Jun 16, 2014, at 8:34 AM, ianG<iang at iang.org>  wrote:
>>>> > >>Indeed.  I'm fascinated to understand Certicom's business thinking.
>>>> > >>What is the business model behind patenting backdoors?
>>> > >There may not be any, as such.  In 2005, patent trolls were still a
>> >minor part of the patent landscape.  Most lawsuits were between big
>> >companies, and the most important thing to have in your war chest in such a
>> >battle is a large collection of patents you can trade to fend of an
>> >attacker.
>>> > >
>>> > >In addition, if you're trying to prove that you're a significant company
>> >in a technical field, being able to say you're "one of the top three patent
>> >holders world-wide in cryptographic algorithms" (or whatever low number you
>> >can hope to put in there; I'll bet IBM is number 1 even today) is good for
>> >your marketing position.
>> >
>> >I wouldn't be surprised if this was it.  Or, they claim it is the reason
>> >in PR.  Basically, a company that patents everything in the space they
>> >can think of, without deep analysis or oversight.
>> >
> I wasn't at Certicom in 2005, but based on my knowledge of company strategy
> (I was CTO 1998-2002), yes, the desire was to file on anything that could
> be patented and figure out how valuable it was further down the line.
> Certicom was a company with a patent IP strategy, so this makes a lot of
> sense.

It has now been 25 years since I was involved with cryptography and 
related issues on a daily basis. But at that time, working for a couple 
of different Silicon Valley companies, we would never patent our best 
new ideas. By the time a patent was even very far along in 
consideration, much less being granted, technology would have moved far 
enough to make that idea obsolete, and in the patent process we would be 
telling the world (at least we had better assume that for safety) about 
our idea. So we relied on keeping our ideas secret until we had newer 
and better ones. Of course ideas that truly change the direction the 
world moves and will be critical for years would be good to patent, but 
details, even though they might be very important in the short run, we 
thought, were better off kept to ourselves.
So the reason for my post is: Has something really changed in the 
process? Or are all of these ideas truly game changing? Or is it a 
matter of gaming the system?
Bob Wilson