Subject: Notes on Bradner technology-02 draft

From: "Valerie See" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 17:30:09 -0800

Hi Scott - (and Brian, please look at #24 (yeah, I know...) 
I've got a question for you (and the WG) on the template 
idea again)

This doc is now so far along that many of these are really getting 
down to editorial nits, so apologies in advance for the 
length of this.... I will follow up with (mainly) editorial stuff 
on the submissions draft too in a separate mail (but probably 
tommorrow rather than tonight).

thanks, Val

1. Nit - "Internet-Draft" and "Internet Draft" (with a space
instead of dash" are used throughout, would want a pass to
standardize usage in both this doc and the submission rights
draft.

2. Abstract - Last sentence, a couple of minor typos - I think
there is a missing comma after "This memo updates RFC 2026..."
plus I think "RFC" was used instead of "section" at one point -
I think the last sentence would read after those mods as 
"This memo updates RFC 2026 and, with RFC XXXY, replaces 
section 10 of RFC 2026."

3. Introduction, section lettered (c) - I notice that some text
here went back to "IPR claim" ("... must disclose the existence
of any IPR claim...") from "patent claim" as it had been noted
in the previous draft. That may be ok here but where it really
gets confusing is later on in the document where this also happened
in some spots in section 6. (Just to elaborate on the source of the
confusion - although I understand the broader use here, section 6 of 
this doc is really clearly focused on _patent_ disclosure, so I'm kind
of concerned about confusion that the broader term used in that
section....) Could it at least go back to "patent
claim" throughout section 6, if it stays this way here?

4. Introduction, section lettered (c) - I'm sorry I didn't
notice this before, but would it be clearer/more consistent to change 
"the participant's employer or others represented by" to
"the participant's employer, sponsor, or other organization
represented by"?

5. Nit in Introduction, section lettered (c) - you did 
this everywhere else, but there's an occurrence of "reasonable
and personal" that didn't get edited to "personal and 
reasonable" here.

6. Nit in Section 2.2.1, All Contributions (and probably 
elsewhere) - just a style thing, but probably a consistent
style for "his/her" (or "his or her", or whatever gets picked)
needs to get looked for throughout the document. (It's various
right now - "his/her" here, but "his or her" in 2.2.1 (a) for
example...)

7. Section 2.2.1 again - for clarity, suggest changing "behalf
of the organizations the contributor represents (if any)" to
"behalf of the organizations the contributor represents or is
sponsored by (if any)". Also - I think there is a missing comma
after "If the contribution is an Internet Draft".

8. Section 2.2.1 (B) - as the "grants, acknowledgments and 
agreements" run throughout, should "grants, acknowledgments and
agreements above" be "grants, acknowledgements and agreements
herein" instead?

9. Grammar nit in 3 (A) - For matching, change "When any
intellectual property are" to "When any intellectual property
is" (I think this is singular??)

10. Section 3 (C) - "Internet Standards track" came out of here
from where it had been in the previous draft... if for no other
reason than consistency with the language later in this document
I think it should come back. I.e. go back to "upon approval by 
the IESG of the relevant Internet standards track specification(s)"

11. Section 3 (C) - for clarity and consistency, I'd suggest 
that it might be worth changing "with respect to Implementing 
Technology under royalty-free terms or, if that is not available,
under reasonable, non-discriminatory terms" to "with respect to
Implementing Technology under one of the licensing options 
specified in section 6.5 below," - Since 6.5 talks about these options,
it seems as though it might make sense to only say this in one 
place (less opportunity for language to get out of sync?)

12. Nits in Section 3 (C) - just a question - should "Working Group"
always appear with initial caps? (it's various throughout the doc,
so just another style consistency thing.) Also I think there's
a missing comma after "A working group may take into consideration 
the results of this procedure in evaluating the technology".

13. Section 4 (A) - I think a reference to IETF SUB may be missing
in the last sentence of this disclaimer? I.e. it (and the following
instructions) should be "Information on the IETF's procedures with
respect to rights in IETF documents can be found in RFC XX and RFC XY.
[note to RFC Editor - replace XX with the number of this
document and replace XY with number of IETF SUB ]"

14. Section 4 (A), second para of disclaimer - I'm not sure that the
"royalty-free" reference here carries the same connotation that the
previous language (i.e. "general") did. (and, in fact, I admit it 
confused me when I was reading this draft.) The difference as I read
this
is between a "general" license, which (presumably) could be used for
purposes beyond implementation of the IETF standard, and a license
that is solely for implementation of the IETF standard. I think
"general"
needs to come back here.

15. Section 4 (B), disclaimer - is it clearer to say "proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to _implement_" 
(my emphasis on "implement" rather than "practice") here? (there's also
a consistency question as that's what 1(c) mentions...)

16. Section 5.1 "contribution" definition - I think a part of this got
accidentally left off after the bulleted list? (It's in the
"submissions"
doc....) I.e. "Statements made outside of an IETF meeting, mailing list
or other function, that are clearly not intended to be input to an 
IETF activity, group, or function, are not contributions in the
context of this memo."

15. Section 5 - The "submissions" doc has a definition of "contributors:
individuals making contributions" that I think we should add in here,
too.

16. Nit in Section 5 - do you want to use Initial Caps as an indicator
of a defined term in the document? (Usage sort of varies at present - 
"Implementing Technology" is one where it's consistently done, but
"contribution" and "contributor" don't). Just a question....

17. Section 6, Disclosures - As I mentioned before, I think that even 
if "IPR claims" is used everywhere else in this document, it really
is confusing if we're not specific in this section which is all about
"patent disclosures" and "patent licensing disclosures". I don't know
if you actually want to change the title of the section, but within 
section 6 - I really do think we'll help folks if we use "patent claims"
here rather than "IPR claims".

18. Section 6.1.1, second paragraph - sorry I didn't notice this
before, but the first sentence beginning "This requirement specifically
includes contributions..." could actually go away, as it's covered
by the earlier definition of "contribution". (Unless you think it's
needed
here to reinforce?)

19. Nit in Section 6.1.1, third paragraph - should the comma prior to
"there are no exceptions to this rule" be a semi-colon instead? 
(the "independent clauses" thing?)

20. Nit in Section 6.2.1, last sentence of first para - is there a 
missing comma after "would be covered by new or different IPR claims"?

21. Section 6.2.1, second para - for consistency and clarity, I think
it might be good to change "as soon as reasonably possible after
learning
of the IPR claim" to "as soon as reasonably possible after the IPR
claims
become personally and reasonably known to the contributor". (i.e.
keeping
to the "personal and reasonable" language that's been used throughout
the doc....)

22. Nits in Section 6.4 - is there a missing article "a" in the third
sentence?
(i.e. should "An Internet-Draft must be referenced by specific version
number"
instead be "An Internet-Draft must be referenced by a specific version
number"?)
Also, in the following para, is there a missing comma after "If a 
disclosure was made on the basis of a patent application"?

23. Section 6.4, third paragraph - I liked the addition of the new
text around blanket disclosures for royalty-free situations, but would
like
to suggest that it could be made even clearer with some tweaks to the
language...
i.e. changing from the third sentence on to "The requirement is also not
satisfied by a blanket statement of willingness to license all potential

IPR under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for the same reason.
However, the requirement for an IPR disclosure is satisfied by a blanket
statement of the IPR claimant's willingness to license all its potential
essential IPR to implementers of an IETF standard on a royalty-free
basis
and under other reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions."

24. Section 6.4 - I know that the "disclosure template" idea has no
consensus (at all) as a "requirement" - nor do I think it _has_ to be 
a requirement. But do people think it could work as a "suggested"
mechanism?
Again, I'm not asking in order to insert anything odious in the process,
I'm just asking if it would help people make sure that they get the
right
minimum set of stuff covered as they make disclosures... Brian, 
we've had several comments back and forth on that point between us on
the 
template idea, but I'm not sure where you landed on that particular
question?

25. Section 6.5 - The question title seems like it could be even
clearer if it changed to "What licensing information must be detailed
in a disclosure?" Also.... the language in this draft has some "or" 
language in here that I think could get really confusing (and the
appearance
of "openly specified" which was previously stricken elsewhere in the
doc).
I think it would be clearer if the last sentence here said something
like 
"Specifically, it should indicate whether, upon approval by the IETF
of the relevant Internet standards track specification(s), all persons
will be able to obtain the right to implement, use, distribute, and
exercise
other rights with respect to an Implementing Technology a) under a
royalty-free
and otherwise reasonable and non-discriminatory license, or b) under a 
license that contains reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and
conditions,
including a reasonable royalty, or c) without the need to obtain a
license
from the IPR claimant." (This change also is what I was referring to
back in
3 (C) - if we do this here we can just refer from 3(C) to section 6.5
instead
of duping language.

26. Section 6.6 - minor consistency tweaks - "employer or sponsor"
changes to
"employer, sponsor, or represented organization (if any), or such
persons..."
Also, there's a missing "such IPR" later in that sentence - i.e. I think
(?)
it was meant to be "such persons otherwise have the right to license or 
enforce such IPR, and a license...".
Finally, for consistency, "would be required to practice" would go to
"would
be required to implement", again for consistency.

27. Minor edits, Section 6.7 - Should "last call" be in 
initial caps and in quotes? (no preference, just asking?) Also, 
might the last sentence be clearer as "This 'Call for IPR disclosures'
is used to request anyone who knows of relevant IPR to disclose this
IPR to the Working Group or IESG (whichever issued the Last-Call)."?

28. Section 7 - Should this maybe move to the "definitions" section?
Also, just to make it match the definition in the "submissions" doc,
I think the last sentence needs to be "But this requirement should
not be interpreted as requiring the IETF contributor or participant
(or his or her represented organization or sponsor, if any) to 
perform a patent or other IPR search to find applicable IPR."

29. Section 9 - for consistency, I think "fair and non-discriminatory" 
needs to be "reasonable and non-discriminatory"...
Also, correcting a minor typo, and making some suggestions just to 
make this clearer.... "present in all implementations of such a
specification that can be used in all cases.  This does not limit the
specification from including other security technologies, the use of
which could be negotiated between implementations.  An IETF consensus
has developed that a mandatory-to-implement security technology should 
only be specified in an IETF specification if it has no known IPR claims
against it, or if a royalty-free license for such technology is 
available to implementers of the specification, unless there is a very 
good reason to include such mandatory-to-implement technology under 
other conditions."

30. Typo, Section 9 - I think the sentence starting "People or 
organizations not currently involved in the IETF..." had some 
extra periods and capital letters - is it meant to be "People or
organizations not currently involved in the IETF, or people or
organizations...." (and so on)?

30. Section 9, last para - minor tweak / suggestion - rather than
"it is reasonable that a working group", would it make sense to say
"it is reasonable that working group participants" (given the rest of
the sentence?)

31. Section 10 - sorry for just noticing this - but isn't the material
in section 10 here really more stuff that should be in the "submissions"

document? Should it move to there?

32. Section 11 - I think this section actually becomes redundant given 
the new sentence in section 3.1. Should it go away? (I realize this
topic
area is under some discussion, I'm just getting at the fact that it
appears
that we're covering the same ground in two places in this doc at the
moment).

33. Section 12 - I think there's a typo in the fourth sentence?
It currently says "Specific IPR disclosures should not be in the 
affected docs" but was it supposed to be "Specific IPR claims should
not be in the affected docs" instead? 
Also - there are two occurrences of "mislead" in this paragraph
that (I think) need to be "misled" instead....

34. Nit in Section 13 - there's an extra space that needs to come out of

"IPR- protected" (i.e. after the dash).

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 12:54:33 +0100

Valerie See wrote:
...
> a requirement. But do people think it could work as a "suggested"

I think that would be very useful.

  Brian

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:16:35 -0500

> I think that would be very useful.

Who would it be a suggestion to?  Do you want the RFC to suggest to
disclosers that they create a template and use it?  I don't think so.
The alternative is that you want to suggest to IETF administration that
they create templates -- but that doesn't belong in this RFC, if in any.
_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 18:05:11 +0100

> they create templates -- but that doesn't belong in this RFC, if in any.

The second alternative, and I agree, it's a purely operational
matter for the secretariat.

   Brian