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People are paying for it because they get value out of what they are paying for. TCP/IP isn't patented, but companies will pay several million dollars for a TC
by ghshephard 11y ago
People are paying for it because they get value out of what they are paying for. TCP/IP isn't patented, but companies will pay several million dollars for a TCP/IP stack for their embedded firmware.
Don't conflate people's willingness to pay for a particular implementation (accompanying documentation, support, tools), with a legal requirement that they need to do so for the underlying technology.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoI didn't. I thought that, after much publicity and a lawsuit, they paid for patent licenses out of coercion rather than willingness. The usual reason. Maybe the patents don't apply to anything, NSA was just being generous by buying patent licenses for nothing, and everyone else was buying software licenses. As I asked above, I just want a solid reference showing this and that the 100+ patents don't apply to anything we use. So far, everyone wants me to take their word for it despite my references showing government and companies buying patent licenses. Weird. I'm thinking I should send a letter to Blackberry asking if ECC is covered by their patents or if everyone just wanted to pay for an implementation for various reasons. Might simplify this debate.