Both of these patents would likely prevent the protocol from moving forwards as an IETF standard. The charter for the OpenPGP WG states clearly that the purpose of the group is to create protocols based on PGP that can become IETF standards. The OpenPGP protocol, which is on the IETF standards track, is described in OpenPGP Message Format , RFC 2440. A survey of PGP implemenations describes a variety of PGP implementations available and which prototocols they support. However, they differ in many ways, and are not designed to be interoperable.
Some cryptography algorithms are the same between the two protocols, but others differ.
The following chart is a comparison of many relevant features of the two protocols, showing where they differ and where they are the same. They would very much like to see a single standard for secure Internet mail. We have initiated considerable industry discussion about requirements, starting with our Email Security Workshop at the beginning of 1996. IMC has also helped the editors of the OpenPGP drafts. Further, we host the mailing lists discussing each protocol.