Re: IP issues re Timestamp Patents.

["todd glassey" <todd.glassey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: WG Last Call: Roadmap

This is not completely true.  The other claims of the Surety Patent were not struck down as were a number of other timebase management and control patents that still exist.

For instance is a patent called "Controlling Access to Stored Information"  and is listed as EP 997-808 (5-mar-2000). It uses time and positioning  information in concert and alone to provide a keying and a control system for evidentiary use and that of access control as well.

 

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message -----

From: Carlisle Adams

To: 'Denis Pinkas'

Cc: ietf-pkix@xxxxxxx

Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 1:23 PM

Subject: RE: WG Last Call: Roadmap

Hello,

----------
From:   Denis Pinkas[SMTP:Denis.Pinkas@xxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Tuesday, March 26, 2002 12:11 PM
To:     ietf-pkix@xxxxxxx
Cc:     Carlisle Adams
Subject:        Re: WG Last Call: Roadmap

Comments on the roadmap document draft-ietf-pkix-roadmap-07.txt
 

(...some comments deleted...)

COMMENT 10. On page 28. The story about patents on TSP is currently
described as follows:

   "At the Minneapolis IETF meeting, it was disclosed that the materials
   covered in [TSP] draft may be covered by patent(s). Use of the
   material covered by the patent(s) in question has not be granted by
   the patent holder. Thus, anyone interested in implementing the PKIX
   [TSP] draft must be aware of this intellectual property issue. "

Which IETF meeting in Minneapolis, since we have had three meetings in that
location ? Anyway, the description does not capture what happened with
Surety and Entrust. During the last IETF 2002 meeting in Minneapolis, I have
asked Carlisle to provide a text replacement.

The following text is from a press release issued by Entrust on November 9, 1999.  This text may be incorporated into the Roadmap document, if people agree with Denis that the current text is inadequate.

Carlisle.

8<---------------------------

In February of 1999, a lawsuit was filed by Surety Technologies, Inc., in which Surety alleged that the Entrust, Inc., digital timestamping product, Entrust/Timestamp(tm), infringed U.S. Patent Re 34,954 (the "'954 Patent", a re-issue of U.S. Patent 5,136,647).

Entrust's product uses a common technique for digital timestamping called the hash-and-sign method.

In a verdict returned on November 3, 1999, a federal jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that the claims of the '954 Patent covering hash-and-sign timestamping were not new at the time of the purported invention, and further, were longstanding as the obvious way to digitally timestamp an electronic document.

With this ruling, the use of hash-and-sign timestamping is now open to anyone wishing to implement this technology in products or services in the United States.