5 ms·

I think RSA was a good software patent, or even lzw. Both had significant impacts and where novel

• Jolter 4y ago
  Sure but was society better off because those were patented as opposed to open (or secret)?
  • pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Yes, because there's a reasonable chance they would not have been invented (or they would have taken much longer to appear) without the economic upside of a patent. Also, a patent trades forced disclosure for a limited monopoly. The disclosure in both of these cases has been very good.
    • beached_whale 4y ago
      Also, people immediately licensed the patents and it further research in the field that was owned by entities like the NSA prior
    • edflsafoiewq 4y ago
      Very dubious, given that both have since been superseded by better patent-free alternatives.
      • pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Which are all built on top of the public disclosure of these algorithms, which was required by... the patents! Prior to RSA being patented, a lot of encryption was proprietary (and probably mostly broken), and nobody could build on top of it. Post-patent, the RSA inventors could publish details and publicize their invention, which led to the alternatives.
  • beached_whale 4y ago
    Yes, and look at the history leading up to this(secret algorithms with a trust me it works non-guarantee). The cat was out of the bag on pki and there was no putting it back. People built on that knowledge and developed new techniques