IP status of SOBER-128? (Re: [Cfrg] Authenticated encryption primitive -- SOBER-128)

[Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>]

Well I for one am very pleased to see work on primitives such as Helix
and SOBER-128 which try to provide authentication as well as
encryption.  It seems that construction flaws typically creep in where
not-so-crypto-savy programmers make up ways to authenticate, and with
AES we have this whole messy scenario where there are multiple
competing modes which provide authentication and confidentiality --
some of the more efficient of which are patented, and most of the less
efficient of which basically amount to no more than just that: MAC the
mesage and encrypt the message (great).

One question about using SOBER-128.  Greg mentioned in his
announcement free use of the source code or other implementations, and
on the web page it says "freely available", but then there is also a
patent section at the bottom of:

	http://www.qualcomm.com.au/publications.html

What is the overall picture: can anyone use the algorithms without
negotiating a license even though there are patents which may be
argued to cover aspects of SOBER-128's design?

Thanks

Adam
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