19.8 U.S. PATENT 4,200,770 [HELLMAN ET AL., 1977]
The anticipation requirement Section 35, U.S.C. §102(b), requires that an application for a U.S. patent be filed within one year of disclosure of the invention. When Diffie and Hellman discovered public key cryptography, they presented their ideas at various meetings, including a conference in mid-June 1976 [Diffie and Hellman, 1976] more than a year before the ‘770 patent application was filed. Whether a technical talk or conference constitutes disclosure in the sense of Section 35 U.S.C. §102(b) is a legal issue matter for litigation. As their invention was described at various public events, the validity of their patent was open to question.
Figure 19.2 '770 patent.
Get Computer Security and Cryptography now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
