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Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 05:58:52 -0400
From: Arnold Reinhold <agr@...com>
To: passwords@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Bloom filter patent
The first thing is to get hold of any patent or patents that have been issued. Then see what they actually claim. There are search tools on the patent office web site and at patents.google.com, among others.
There are ways to challenge a patent at the Patent Office, but nothing involved with patents is simple or cheap. In particular, what is obvious is highly non-obvious. A major 2007 Supreme Court case that might be helpful is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSR_International_Co._v._Teleflex_Inc.
The argument would be that Bloom filters are designed to efficiently determine membership in very large sets and lists of compromised passwords are very large sets, creating a situation similar to what was held to be obvious in KSR v. Teleflex. But again nothing involved with patents is simple or cheap. And I am not lawyer, much less a patent lawyer, much less a good patent lawyer.
Arnold
> On Oct 29, 2018, at 11:58 AM, Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> A couple of weeks ago, I learned that a company claims to have patented
> the use of Bloom filter for checking whether a password is known to have
> been compromised:
>
> hxxps://blog.shapesecurity.com/2018/09/26/look-ma-no-passwords-how-why-blackfish-uses-bloom-filters/
> hxxps://www.shapesecurity.com/blackfish/
>
> "Blackfish doesn't store passwords
>
> The security of the Blackfish system itself was the most important
> design consideration. Shape's patented design uses a Bloom filter,
> enabling Blackfish to perform lookups of your user's credentials without
> maintaining a database of compromised passwords."
>
> Naturally, I find patenting this unethical for many reasons.
>
> Now, I bring this up in here because Arnold Reinhold and I happened to
> comment on this idea in here last year:
>
> https://www.openwall.com/lists/passwords/2017/10/29/2
>
> I wonder if this possibly pre-dates the patent application if one has in
> fact been made. I tried searching for patents granted to this company
> and found many, some of them looking particularly questionable, but not
> a patent on use of Bloom filters. Maybe the patent is not yet granted.
>
> Arnold, would you care and know how to possibly notify the US patent
> office about this and hopefully prevent this patent from being granted?
>
> Alexander
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