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A comment on The Patent Protection Racket. Parent comment

Re:The Patent Protection Racket by betterunix on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:25PM (#5482928)
"The thing I can accept are cryptographic algorithms, since as an outcome we get a product"

Of all the things...

Cryptography is math in this day and age. Patents on crypto are patents on math, with only the measly "ON A COMPUTER!!!!" clause justifying their existence.

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Re:The Patent Protection Racket by DanBC on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:28PM (#5482941)
See, for example, Clifford Cocks who invented RSA before RSA did, but was unable to patent it, and thus didn't get the profits that RSA did.

He got a nice medal though.

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Re:The Patent Protection Racket by spc476 on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @09:30PM (#5483584)
If that's the case, then why wasn't the RSA patent revoked due to prior art?
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Re:The Patent Protection Racket by jacques_chester on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @10:03PM (#5483728)
Prior art has to be published.

For some strange reason, Her Majesty's cryptographers at GCHQ were loathe to give up all their classified goodies during the cold war. :)

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