History for IPR disclosure
RSA Security's statement on public-key cryptosystem patent

From: http://www.ietf.org/ietf-ftp/IPR/RSA





September 12, 2000


Via Federal Express

IETF Secretariat
c/o Corporation for National Research Initiatives
1895 Preston White Drive
Suite 100
Reston, VA 20191-5434

Dear Sir or Madam:

RSA Security Inc. recognizes that the RSA public-key cryptosystem covered by
U.S. Patent  #4,405,829, which is owned by Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and licensed exclusively to RSA Security, is cited and employed
within a large number of standards documents and drafts (such as ANSI X9.31
and X9.44, FIPS 186-2, IEEE 1363, IETF S/MIME, IPsec and TLS, ISO/IEC 9796-2
and 14888-3, and WAP WTLS).  The patent was due to expire on September 20,
2000.  On September 6, 2000, RSA Security announced that, effective
immediately, it would not enforce the patent against third parties who desire
to create, sell or offer to sell in the U.S. products that incorporate their
own implementation of the RSA algorithm.

RSA Security does not claim ownership of any additional intellectual property
needed to implement and practice the RSA public-key cryptosystem contained
within U.S. Patent #4,405,829.  Thus, third parties may now sell or offer to
sell in the U.S. implementations of the RSA public-key cryptosystem without a
license from RSA Security.  However, RSA Security does not represent or
warrant that implementations of the algorithm will not infringe the
intellectual property rights of any third party.

RSA Security does maintain copyright and other intellectual property rights
in RSA's own implementations of the RSA public-key cryptosystem, which are
incorporated into the RSA BSAFE(r) toolkit and other RSA Security products
and made available to other organizations under license.  This licensing
practice is unaffected by the expiration of U.S. Patent #4,405,829.


Sincerely,



Margaret K. Seif
Vice President and General Counsel