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What Would You Do With a New Form of Encryption?
Kip Knight asks: "I've been sitting on an invention for six months now. I'm debating whether to 'give it to the world' or patent it. I would obviously like to feed my family on the fruits of my endeavour but don't see much hope in the open source route. My invention improves upon the 80 year old One-Time Pad encryption turning it into a 'Many-Time Pad'. Since I haven't got my export license to speak about the details yet, I won't describe further. The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP). The disadvantage is carrying around a very large digital key (which could easily fit on one of those USB memory key fobs). My question is this: Could I sell enough $10 shareware GPG extensions to compensate for not locking in 20 years of patent protection (and the $20,000 to patent it)?" While the claims made by the submittor have yet to withstand the crucial test of time (and prying eyes), if you had developed a new form of encryption, what would you do?
The above post definitely has this one right. Patent it, that way somebody else can't steal the idea and claim they invented it and make YOUR profit from it. That being done, you can easily distribute it freely to the masses for common use, or sell shareware, or whatever. If it's really as good as you claim, you shouldn't have problems selling $10 or whatever shareware licenses. Also, if it's that good, corporations would be climbing all over you for access to it. You could charge a very reasonable fee for its use, even allow yourself to be hired as a security consultant/whatever, and make your profit from it.
I realize it's an up-front cost for patenting, but look at the alternative: someone stealing/adapting your invention and making the money that YOU could've had. Don't let that happen to you. And if it's really that good, there are services out there that will help you patent inventions, although I will admit to not being entirely familiar with them having never patented something myself.
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this.
A provisional patent costs $85, and you don't need a lawyer. It essentially keeps your patent claim alive for one year, and establishes a filing date, allowing you to disclose the invention without (as much) fear of losing your rights.
Once you assess it's commercial viability, you can decide on the >$10k formal patent.
I've done this many times. It's definitely the way to go.
Furthermore, I am confused by this sentence in Kip's posting:
The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP).
Which implies that the OTP is insecure with known-plaintext, or by brute-forcing, which is untrue for any correctly used OTP. So, either Kip Knight didn't express very well what he meant, or he is not as well versed in cryptography as he should be.
In any case, the proof is in the pudding. I remain skeptical of the claims.
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