Posts Tagged: "Leonard Adleman"

A Look at RSA Cryptography and the Seminal Patent that Landed the Inventors in the Hall of Fame

One of the first and most widely-used public key systems for cryptography is known as RSA cryptography, named for the trio of inventors who developed the system at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970s: Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman. These three inventors have each been inducted as part of the 2018 class of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and this Thursday, September 20th, marks the 35th anniversary of the issue of the seminal patent in the field of RSA cryptography. With this important date upon us, we return to our Evolution of Technology series to explore the development of this encryption system which has been incorporated as a fundamental aspect of many transaction systems and secure communications protocols.

Steve Brachmann

September 20, 2018

Patent Subject Matter Eligibility 101

The patents discussed below are all landmark inventions and were conceived by inventors inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF). Would these ground-breaking inventions, that helped set the course of humanity, be patentable today? … The point is that at first blush it’s not readily clear whether these patents would be found subject matter eligible, demonstrating that the uncertainty created by the Supreme Court with respect to patent subject matter eligibility has few bounds – even impacting the most celebrated inventions of our most honored inventors… If we cannot determine with reasonable certainty how all of these inventions would fare if judged under recent Supreme Court case law, then no one can truly teach Patent Subject Matter Eligibility 101.

Manny Schecter

May 8, 2018