June 25, 1998 Burt Kaliski Chair, IEEE P1363 Chair RSA Laboratories East 20 Crosby Drive Bedford, MA 01730-1402 Dear Burt: This letter is in response to the IEEE P1363 Patent Solicitation Letter of February 1998 and updates and supercedes our previous letter on this subject. Certicom is committed to making public key cryptography viable in the most demanding environments, particularly encountered in small constrained devices such as wireless devices, PDA's and smart cards. In pursuing research to discover the most efficient ways to implement high strength public key cryptography Certicom has filed numerous patents on cryptographic implementation techniques, routines, algorithms, and protocols. Some of these techniques are embodied in currently evolving standards and Certicom is continuing to meet its obligations to notify standards associations of patent coverage. We have attached a schedule setting out the areas of the P1363 Standard that fall under the scope of one or more Certicom patents or patents pending. In the event that the standard cannot be practiced without the use of one or more issued patents which are now or hereafter owned or controlled by Certicom, Certicom agrees upon request to grant a non-exclusive license under such patent or patents on a nondiscriminatory basis and on reasonable terms and conditions including its then current royalty rates and provided a similar grant under licensee's patents within the scope of the license granted to licensee is made available upon request to Certicom. Complete details of Certicom's standard non-discriminatory license terms are available by contacting: Bruce MacInnis Director of Licensing Certicom Corp. 200 Matheson Blvd. West Mississauga, Ontario Canada L5R 3L7 905-507-9343 Fax: 905-507-9406 bmacinni@certicom.com Yours truly, Certicom Corp. Philip C. Deck President Attachment Attachment to Certicom response of June 24, 1998 to IEEE P1363 patent solicitation letter PART I. Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Method An implementation conforming to IEEE P1363 methods based on the elliptic curve discrete logarithm may require a license from Certicom for one or more of the following items. Certicom has the license rights to the following patent: 4745568: Computational method and apparatus for finite field multiplication, issued May 17, 1988. This patent includes methods for efficient implementation of finite field arithmetic using a normal basis representation. Certicom has the exclusive North American license rights to the following patent: 5600725: Digital signature method and key agreement method, issued Feb. 4, 1997. This patent includes the Nyberg-Rueppel (NR) signature method. Certicom has patent applications that include the following: 1. Methods for efficient implementation of elliptic curve arithmetic over finite fields. This includes efficient methods for computing inverses. 2. Methods for point compression. 3. Methods to improve performance of private key operations. 4. Various versions of the MQV key agreement protocols. 5. Methods to represent an elliptic curve point using a normal basis and methods for efficient computation using such representations. 6. Methods to improve performance of finite field arithmetic of characteristic two by using subfields. 7. Methods to avoid the small subgroup attack. 8. Methods to improve performance of elliptic curve arithmetic; in particular, fast efficient multiplication techniques. 9. Methods to improve performance of finite field arithmetic of characteristic two using a permuted optimal normal basis representation. 10. Methods to improve performance of finite field multiplication. 11. Methods for efficient implementation of arithmetic modulo n, where n is prime or composite. 12. Methods to perform validation of EC public keys. 13. Methods to improve performance for some public key based protocols. PART II. Discrete Logarithm Problem Methods An implementation conforming to IEEE P1363 methods based on the discrete logarithm problem over a finite field might require a license from Certicom for one or more of the following items. Certicom has the license rights to the following patent: 4745568: Computational method and apparatus for finite field multiplication, issued May 17, 1988. This patent includes methods for efficient implementation of finite field arithmetic using a normal basis representation. Certicom has the exclusive North American license rights to the following patent: 5600725: Digital signature method and key agreement method, issued Feb. 4, 1997. This patent includes the Nyberg-Rueppel (NR) signature method. Certicom has patent applications that include the following: 14. Methods to improve performance of private key operations. 15. Various versions of the MQV key agreement protocols. 16. Methods to improve performance of finite field arithmetic of a characteristic two by using subfields. 17. Methods to avoid the small subgroup attack. 18. Methods to improve performance of finite field arithmetic of characteristic two. 19. Methods to improve performance of finite field multiplication. 20. Methods for efficient implementation of arithmetic modulo n, where n is prime or composite. 21. Methods to perform validation of DL public keys. 22. Methods to improve performance of public key operations. PART III. Integer Factorization Methods An implementation conforming to P1363 methods based on the integer factorization problem might, if the applicable patent applications are granted, require a license from Certicom for one or more of the following items. Certicom has patent applications that include the following: 23. Methods for efficient implementation of arithmetic modulo n, where n is prime or composite. 24. Methods to perform validation of IF public keys.