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Patent-related uncertainty around Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), or ECC patents, is one of the main factors limiting its wide acceptance. For example, the OpenSSL team accepted an ECC patch only in 2005 (in OpenSSL version 0.9.8), despite the fact that it was submitted in 2002. According to RSA Laboratories, "in all of these cases, it is the implementation technique that is patented, not the prime or representation, and there are alternative, compatible implementation techniques that are not covered by the patents." This uncertainty is profitable for patent owners. For example, in order to avoid any patent-related problems the NSA has licensed ECC patents from Certicom in a US$25 million deal for NSA Suite B algorithms.

• Apple Computer holds a patent on efficient implementation of ECC over GF(p) where p is close to a power of 2.
• Certicom holds a patent on efficient GF(2ⁿ) multiplication in normal basis representation.
• Certicom holds patents which cover the MQV (Menezes, Qu, and Vanstone) key agreement technique.
• Certicom holds patent (U.S. Patent 6,141,420 ) on techniques for compressing elliptic curve point representations.

According to the NSA, Certicom holds over 130 patents relating to elliptic curves and public key cryptography in general[1].

It is difficult to create a complete list of patents which are related to ECC, but a good starting point is SECG — a group devoted exclusively to developing standards based on ECC. There is controversy over the validity of some of the patent claims.

• RSA Laboratories, Crypto FAQ: 6.3.4 Are elliptic curve cryptosystems patented?
• The Case for Elliptic Curve Cryptography, National Security Agency discusses patent situation
• OpenSSL Gets Cryptography Gift From Sun, 2002
• Certicom Sells Licensing Rights to NSA, October 24, 2003
• Alexander Klimov, Re: ECC patents?, Cryptography at metzdowd.com, October 15, 2005
• Bodo Moeller, Re: ECC patents?, Cryptography at metzdowd.com, October 17, 2005
• SECG: Patents held by Certicom as of May 26, 1999 and as of February 10, 2005
• Harper, Menezes and Vanstone, Public-Key Cryptosystems with Very Small Key Lengths, EUROCRYPT '92 (LNCS 658)