🚀 go-pugleaf

    Oh, I don't know about that.  The European public got rather a lot,
    and don't even have to pay royalties.  Come to that, PKP don't even
    have a monopoly.  A limited monopoly, limited to within the US, yes.

    "The public" != "The population of the US".

Good point.  I meant "the public" to mean the abstract public who in
the justification of patents temporarily give up their right to use
the invention freely, in exchange for getting to see the details of
the invention.  For RSA, this just means people in the US.

Note, however, that even the European public didn't get anything in
exchange for the US RSA patent.  RSA was already published (through
great effort of R+S+A, against opposition from the US spy agencies)
before the US patent was applied for.  Without the US patent,
Europeans would still be able to use RSA, *plus* any number of
RSA-using programs and devices that might have been developed in the
US but were prevented by the patent.  Thus, even for Europeans, the US
patent is a cost with no benefit.

I detect in your article a (justifiable) tone of gloating that
European patent law is presently less stupid than US patent law.  You
might want to take note that the pending international GATT treaty
will impose the stupidity of software patents on all signatories.  If
the US Government gets your country to sign the treaty, then this
idiocy will control your actions as it now does ours :-(.  You might
want to do something about this situation by opposing the treaty in
your country.  For more information, write league@uunet.uu.net as
usual.

Standard disclaimer: opinions mine not Telebit's.