Re: P1363: RSA claiming trademark on all uses of "RSA" to describe algorithm

[Alfred John Menezes <ajmeneze@cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca>]

Neal Koblitz suggested the following alternative to me, which is
consistent with the traditional academic practice of listing authors
alphabetically:

  Adleman Rivest Shamir Encryption.

- Alfred




On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, John Gilmore wrote:

> > Security Dynamics Technologies, Inc. has sent a letter to the P1363
> > working group regarding trademark protection of the RSA name.  The letter
> > is now available from our patents page
> > http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/patents.html
> > or directly at
> > http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/letters/SecurityDynamics.jpg
> 
> Now that their patent is getting ready to expire (next fall), RSA is
> trying to crack down on anyone who refers to the use of the
> algorithm by calling it "RSA".  They don't mind if you call it "type
> 1" or something else meaningless and irrelevant, though.  This is a
> new low for a company known for self-serving legal bluster.
> 
> You would think they'd prefer to have people mentioning their corporate
> name all over the place, but now that the algorithm has wide recognition,
> they seem to want to make sure that nobody *else* can say their product
> does RSA.  Even if it does.  If they can't keep you from competing,
> at least they want to prevent you from advertising that you compete.
> They aren't asking much...
> 
> Perhaps we should have a little contest for what to call the RSA
> algorithm, given RSA's objection to calling a shovel a spade.  ASR
> perhaps?  Though ASS is tempting, I wouldn't want to gratuitously
> eliminate Ron Rivest's initial.  SAR as in what a SARry company?  RAS,
> to send a RASberry to the lawyers?
> 
> "EFN" is rot13 of RSA, can we make up a good phrase that it's
> supposed to stand for?  Electronic Freedom Now?  (Well, after Oct 2000
> anyway.)  Extra Funny Name?  Elegant Fraud Nixer?  Embargoed For Now?
> 
> STB is RSA+1 (as in IBM and HAL); any good phrases lurking in there?
> 
> RAL are the first (rather than last) initials of the inventors.
> Then there's RRASLA, the first and last initials.
> 
> There's always completely new names: "ExpoMax", "FactorThis!",
> "SuperSig", "RonFish", etc...
> 
> 	John