As a continuation of a recent thread on "secret patents", could somebody
explain what likely happened in the case of US 6,097,912 ("Cryptographic
system", http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn=US06097812__&s_all=1) issued
on August 1, 2000 on application filed on July 25, 1933 (no application
number, though)? Looks like it has issued only now, so was the application
itself, not a patent, kept secret for such a long time? And why somebody
(inventor?) cared to pursue the matter 67 years after the filing? As a
trivia matter, has anybody heard about a patent issued after a prosecution
lasting more than 67 years?
Incidentally, the electromechanical combinatorial cipher mechanism of US
6,097,912 reminds very much that used in the (in)famous German Enigma cipher
machine, in use and commercially available (in a simplified, non-military
version) a long time before the US application was filed, whose cipher
system was broken in December 1933
(http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~lmazia1/Enigma/main.html). Somebody to challenge
the patent validity?
Kazimierz T. Kaminski, Ph.D.
Registered Patent Agent
InfoSciTech
tel.: (613) 824-9076
fax: (613) 824-9562
Web site: http://www.infoscitech.ca
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