Cryptographic patents: at war and in peace

Brian Spear

World Patent Information, 2000, vol. 22, issue 3, 177-183

Abstract: In this article the dichotomy between the concepts of cryptography ("secret writing") and patents ("lies open") is explored. From an early example of encryption, in Sparta in 405 BC, through examples from the Tudor and Stuart monarchs in England, this art is only occasionally recorded in patent documents, consistent with its almost exclusively military use until very recently. Like many other things, the very rapid expansion of the Internet into practical business activities has caused a major change in the patenting profile for encryption. Thus the need for a good level of security for transactions on the Internet has seen the number of patent applications double in the first half of the 1990s, and then double again in just another 3 years.

Date: 2000
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