>>>> Please note that any implementation of SSLeay with in the United
>>>> States is strictly illegal.
>>> This communication you received is a dramatic oversimplification and I
>>> hope it won't mislead any casual readers of this list.
>>> A short rehash of the U.S. situation for those reading, just because I
>>> haven't seen one here in a while, and Ben very sensibly smirks at the
>>> whole U.S. patent scene -- <grin>
>>> Sigh. Can we all move to Australia now?
>> What about Canada? Am I correct in assuming that Canadians fall under
>> the same restrictions as Americans when it comes to U.S. patent law?
>> From what I know, RSA doesn't have a patent in Canada for it however
> certain US intellectual property rights are supposedly applicable in
> Canada as well due to NAFTA. I have never been able to fully figure this
> out. I have heard from several people that the Canadian government
> "prefers you don't", but won't say you can't.
As a Canadian, I know that there are numerous patents in the US that don't
apply in Canada. As with trademarks, there is a grace period (~6 months or
so) when you apply for patents in one country so that you you can apply to
the other, as provided for in NAFTA. But you still have to apply for patents
in each country. The NAFTA provision insures that whatever date you apply
for in patent in one country is the same as the date you apply for in the
other country, provided you apply in the other countries within the grace
period.
The US patent laws are rediculous to say the least. They (Americans)
can patent equations like 1+1=2, their neighbours, and their pet dogs. :-D
In Canada at least we have a bit more sense, and to the best of my knowledge
RSA encryption patents and UniSys GIF patents do not apply here. (In fact
there is some talk that those US patents may not be on secure ground in the
US.)
I openly and publicly use Apache-SSL in Canada. Plus we get the best
of both worlds. Americans can legally export American full encryption
software to us, plus we can legally export Canadian full encryption based
software to the rest of the world. :-) Everyone is welcome to come here,
and I would happy to offer Internet bandwidth and server use to host any
public encryption software.
Alicia.
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