IP: more on request for comments on US-Funded Academic Research

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

X-Sender: dpreed () mail reed com
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:50:35 -0400
To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () admin listbox com
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Subject: Re: IP: request for comments on US-Funded Academic Research
   and  Patents (e.g., RSA)

Your [Vin McLellan  ed.] long piece mixes claims of facts and 
opinions.  I don't fully
understand your opinions, but you got at least one fact wrong:

Ron Rivest was a professor, not a graduate student, when RSA was invented.
Shamir and Adleman were post-docs being paid by MIT research grants.

If they had been graduate students pursuing their studies, and paying
tuition to MIT, a set of rules designed to protect students from
exploitation would have applied.  But none of them were.  They were
non-student employees of MIT.

As MIT employees, they come under specific rules, because MIT is a party to
all research contracts that involve its staff and facilities.  The three
did not have a choice to keep the work to themselves without seeking one of
the exceptions to MIT's claim of ownership in intellectual property created
under sponsored research contracts - at least that was how MIT handled my
work when I was a professor.  Staff members are required in many
circumstances to file for patents on inventions.

Also, Rivest received both ARPA money and NSF money at various times.
These contract sources typically have had different rules about patent
ownership.

Before spreading guesses, I would clarify your claims.

Regarding the American People's rights - the default state of affairs is
essentially what you said - the Government (not individual people or
corporations) gets a right to use the patents and information royalty free.

The people get no such rights, and the government typically cannot transfer
its royalty free rights to individuals or corporations.  This is not
surprising.  The government holds a lot of private information (your tax
returns, and so forth) but they are not owned and usable by any random
American citizen.

The idea that RSA stole from Americans is utterly wrong.




- David
--------------------------------------------
WWW Page: http://www.reed.com/dpr.html
X-Sender: vin () shell1 shore net
To: cypherpunks () algebra com
From: Vin McLellan <vin () shore net>
Subject: Re: RSA Security, Inc.
Cc: bill.stewart () pobox com, chatski () gl umbc edu, farber () cis upenn edu
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 00:58:12 -0400

I wrote:

>        For the record, Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman were MIT grad students
> -- not employees of either the US Government or the University -- when they
> invented the RSA public key cryptosystem.  Adi Shamir is an Israeli citizen.
> Ron Rivest, however, was studying at MIT and doing research in algrorithms
> (not crypto, per se) under a NSF grant.

         The Diffie and Landau book, "Privacy on the Line," describes Rivest,
Shamir, and Adleman as "three young faculty members at MIT."  I trust their
research better than my memory.  Unfortunately.   Mea Culpa. I should have
double-checked those details before firing off that note on patents and
US-supported academic research.

         A gentleman who said he was a former MIT Professor also dropped me a
private note in which he said that when the RSA PKC was invented, Ron Rivest
was a junior faculty member, and Adi Shamir and Len Adlemen were post-docs
being paid by MIT research grants.  All three MIT employees.

         I interviewed Ron Rivest in '77 for Datamation, I think, and while I
probably had the student/staff details right then, I'm far less certain now
than I was three hours ago.  Unfortunately, I haven't asked Prof. Rivest
about those details in the last couple of decades.

          As employees of the University, the three would have been subject
to different rules than if they had been mere  graduate students.

          It was because they were employees that MIT could, quite
appropriately, file for the patent, naming the three of them as the
inventors.  After a six-year wait, the RSA patent was issued to MIT, and MIT
subsequently licensed RSA Data Security to develop the technology, and
develop a market for the technology.

         I asked Dave Farber of UPenn to post my earlier note to his IP list
with a request that his readers correct or affirm my recollections as to the
logic behind patents being granted for inventions discovered in the process
of academic research supported by US government grants.

         I'll be surprised if I have to eat crow on that one, but I'll keep
the plate handy as necessary.  I wasn't able to resist an uncharitable crack
at Mr. Chatski earlier, so I suppose a tad more humility will do me good.
 
                 Surete,

                                 _Vin
          --------
   "Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent, for good
and ill... yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea, which by its
nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats and others who deem
only themselves worthy of such Privilege."
                   _A Thinking Man's Creed for Crypto  _vbm
 
      *    Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin () shore net>    *