I made the first statement a ‘little’ fuzzy to see if anyone would bite.
True they are not owned by the ‘people’, but they don’t have all the rights
of a private association, such as the right to discriminate, etc. This does
not mean that all their inventions become public property as if they were
working on a government contact where such inventions do become public
property. I did say ‘ALWAYS’ in the statement.
I would suggest you take the patent number from that article and do a google
search. It shows the assignee as MIT. No mention of RSA or Security
Dynamics, but I do know that it was reassigned to them later. I even know
the individual who provided a large piece of the funding for RSA. I think
MIT got a piece of the action until the patent expired or maybe even still
gets money, but I don’t know for sure. MIT does have a very large endowment
fund and it may use money from this and other things to keep it growing.
Hard to believe it was filed in 1977. It only took the PTO almost six years
to grant.
“Roddy, Mark” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> Gee David, if accepting federal and state money makes an enterprise not
> private, then I think that the list of fortune 500 companies that are
> ‘public enterprises’ amounts to approximately 500 companies. Not that I
> disagree with your statement, I just think you probably did not intend the
> implications 
>
> On the other hand, just because the dreaded gummint paid for it doesn’t
mean
> that you are free to take it. Try appropriating one of their vehicles. We
> will be eagerly awaiting your report in 5-10 years.
>
> And not to pick on you, but:
>
> “The RSA Algorithm is claimed in the RSA Patent, which was issued to Drs.
> Rivest, Shamir and Adelman, who exclusively licensed the patent nine days
> later to RSA Data Security, Inc., a company which was originally
controlled
> by the inventors but is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of a Boston based
> company called Security Dynamics Technology, Inc. RSA Data has to date
filed
> three lawsuits alleging infringement of the RSA Patent. Two were settled
> prior to trial, and the third is still pending. Other litigation threats
> have been made regarding alleged infringements of the patent, including
> threats against non-commercial implementations for use by the Internet
> community. The patent expires on September 20, 2000, but that will be
enough
> time for the patent to have a profound impact on the development of
> electronic commerce.”
> http://www.cyberlaw.com/rsa.html
>
> =====================
> Mark Roddy
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David J. Craig [mailto:xxxxx@yoshimuni.com]
> > Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 2:32 PM
> > To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> > Subject: [ntdev] Re: A question about the DDK compiler and
> > preprocessing
> >
> >
> > MIT is NOT always a private company. They accept federal and
> > state money from student loans, government contracts, and
> > non-profit tax exemptions. There is some case that can be
> > made that some/most/all software developed at MIT belongs to
> > the people. In the case of government contracts to do some
> > research and development it is publicly owned. I know that
> > RSA was invented at MIT and the patent owner was MIT.
> >
> > “Ray Trent” wrote in message
> > news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > >
> > > MIT (the example you cited) is also a private company. As far as I
> > > know, all the code developed at actual state schools (e.g.
> > Berkeley),
> > > government labs, etc., are public domain (occasionally incorrect
> > > labeling by software authors notwithstanding).
> > >
> > > Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:
> > >
> > > >>Mind you, the argument that perhaps some GPL’d code was
> > developed at
> > > >>taxpayers expense and therefore should be public domain
> > might have
> > > >>some merit. But what about all the proprietary software that was
> > > >>developed at taxpayer’s expense? Should Lockheed Martin
> > be obligated
> > > >>to release all of their source code (as far as I know,
> > they don’t do
> > > >>much of anything outside of a government contract). How about the
> > > >>code in Cisco routers that the government buys? Or the copies of
> > > >>Windows that the government
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Cisco is not a governemental institution. It is a commercial
> > > > company,
> > which is
> > > > based on some capital and some investors, the governement
> > is just a
> > purchaser.
> > > >
> > > > Not so with scientific institutions.
> > > >
> > > > Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
> > > > StorageCraft Corporation
> > > > xxxxx@storagecraft.com
> > > > http://www.storagecraft.com
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > –
> > > …/ray..
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > —
> > Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
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