🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec25.172233.1663@cbnews.cb.att.com>, jap@cbnews.cb.att.com (james.a.parker) writes:
> In article <1992Dec25.060924.14629@netcom.com> tenney@netcom.com (Glenn S. Tenney) writes:
> >35 USC 271 (g)
> >"Whoever without authority imports into the United States or
> >sells or uses within the United States a product which is made by a
> >process patented in the United States shall be liable as an infringer, if
> >the importation, sale, or use of the product occurs during the term of
> >such process patent.  
> 
> If the "process" is encryption of plaintext by a public key, then wouldn't
> the "product made by the process" be:
> 
>    o The public/private key pair, and
>    o Text encrypted by the public key
> 
> To cover the code, I would expect the statute to say something like, "product
> incorporating the process," or "product making use of the process".  Case law
> may have (mistakenly, IMHO) extended the law to include this, but the statute 
> listed doesn't seem to say that.

Umm -- there's a legal subtlety here.  Note the phrase ``process patent''.
There are (at least?) two forms of claims that can appear in a patent, a
``method'' claim and a ``process'' claim.  The difference is a bit fuzzy
to me, but if you don't claim a process for doing such-and-such, as well
as, or instead of, the method (which covers the actual apparatus), I don't
think the quoted clause applies.  The question here is whether or not the
RSA patent has process claims.  I don't know, and my copy of the patent is
in my office, which I don't expect to visit till ~Jan 4.

No, I'm not a laywer, though I sometimes seem to play one on the net.
But a patent lawyer did explain to me about process vs. method claims;
if I got it wrong, it's my fault, not his....