Cylink Licenses Encryption Technology to Major Corporations
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — November 7, 1995 — Cylink Corp. has licensed its Stanford patents (Hellman-Merkel, Diffie-Hellman) to Atalla (a Tandem Company), General Magic, Inc. and Intel Corp.
These licenses allow access to all implementations of Public Key cryptography, including Diffie-Hellman key exchange and Digital Signature Standard (DSS). The license agreements follow a recent ruling by an arbitration panel in which it was determined that Cylink is the only company which may license the Stanford patents.
Intel and Atalla have licensed full rights to the Stanford patents on a fixed fee, royalty-free basis — an unprecedented practice in the Public Key cryptographic market. General Magic has licensed Public Key to continue their use of the RSA implementation.
"Our goal is to open up the market and give developers a better, more cost-effective alternative," said David Morris, vice president of marketing, Cylink. In today's market, where sales of a single software product can number in the millions of units, the practice by some vendors of charging a per copy royalty restricts the widespread adoption of this critical security technology. "Developers now have the 'freedom of choice' in selecting a Public Key vendor, and when choosing Cylink they need only to pay a flat licensing fee for rights to the technology."
The Stanford patents cover the field of Public Key cryptography, a security technique that ensures privacy, authentication and the integrity of electronic information. Uniform adoption of the Stanford technology is key to ensuring security for electronic information exchanges, including electronic commerce and banking.
Atalla and Intel both will be incorporating Cylink's technology into some of their upcoming products.
"Intel is excited about the future of Public Key cryptography, and applauds Cylink for its innovative licensing program. The Stanford patents are the foundation for a technology that will protect business and consumer data on the information highway," said Steve Ellis, a manager in the Advanced Personal Communications Division at Intel.
"Acquiring the license to the Stanford patents allows Atalla to use this innovative technology to deliver products that not only make open networks safer for electronic commerce, but also lower the overall cost of managing the security function," said Gary Sabo, vice president of product management & marketing, Atalla.
General Magic is currently using encryption technology in its Magic Cap(TM) software platform and Telescript(TM) products. The Magic Cap software platform, built into personal communicators or capable of running as an application on personal computers, helps people keep in touch by integrating electronic mail, fax, telephone, paging, infrared beaming and other methods of communicating.
Telescript technology includes an object-oriented remote programming language and is designed to enable users to launch software surrogates, called agents, into the world of electronic services to search for and monitor information and to interact with services as well as other agents on a user's behalf.
"Cylink is clearly trying to be fair and not disrupt the business of RSA licensees which have relied on the rights they thought they had received in their agreements with RSA," said Michael Stern, general counsel, General Magic. "General Magic appreciates the reasonableness of Cylink's proposed terms."
For further information regarding Stanford patent rights from Cylink, contact Robert Fougner, general counsel of Cylink at 408/735-5893.
Cylink Corp. is the world's largest provider of enterprise-wide network information security products and wireless communications. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., CYLINK serves fortune 500 companies, multinational corporations, large financial institutions, U.S. and international government agencies.
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