An introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography [LWN.net]

An introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Posted Mar 11, 2006 8:33 UTC (Sat) by LetterRip (guest, #6816)
In reply to: An introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography by oak
Parent article: An introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography

[QUOTE]You're infringing even if you had made the discovery earlier, unless:
- you've patented the discovery, or
- you've made the information into prior art (public)
Just inventing it earlier is not enough. [/QUOTE]

Actually I believe that is incorrect (at least for the US).

I'm not a lawyer, but as I recall as long as you documented your prior invention - then your invention has primacy. Things like lab notes and other formal documentation procedures can be used to establish this.

LetterRip

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Elliptic Curve Cryptography patents

Posted Mar 11, 2006 23:09 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I too have only a vague understanding of this, but years ago, I know the US stood out with its "first to invent" rule, which meant a patent was good only to the first person to invent something, so if you had private notes proving you had invented it earlier than the patentee, you not only had a right to use it yourself, but the patent was invalid and you could file your own patent and exclude the original patentee from the invention!

But I also heard the US was thinking of changing to the more practical "first to file" rule, where whoever files a patent first owns the invention. I don't know if that happened.

Incidentally, one point missed from the original posting is that it contemplates developing an original implementation "from the math." In that case, there's no independent invention going on anyway -- using that math for that purpose is the invention, and you got it from someone else. It's not only a patent infringement, but a deliberate one.