Subject: RE: IPR issues in RFC 3552, etc.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:40:51 -0400

> To illustrate problems in this area, I posed some rhetorical questions
> to David Black, including asking:
> 
> >> For example, do you really believe the patent status of EKE is unclear?
> 
> I think he responded by asserting that the licensing terms
> for SRP were unclear.

What I wrote (or meant to write) is that the licensing terms for EKE
are unclear.  As David Jablon notes, SRP is a different technology.

> Is it appropriate to have statements in an RFC about the "clarity" of
> a party's IPR position or the licensing terms for a party's IP?

There is currently considerable interest in improving the efficiency,
effectiveness, timeliness, etc. of the IETF (cf. the Vienna IESG plenary).
Warning WGs away from technology areas with unclear IPR situations that
may consume significant time and thereby delay WG completion of protocol
specifications seems useful.

Thanks,
--David (IPS WG co-chair)
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
[email-masked]        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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From: David Jablon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 09:21:03 -0400

In an attempt to clarify his opinion of someone else's IPR,
at 04:40 PM 8/26/03 -0400, [email-masked] wrote:

>are unclear.  [...]

David, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're still referring to
terms for the SRP *method*, since that's the only one in its class
that was officially investigated by you and your IPS WG co-chair.

But it is still unclear whether your statement refers to:
(1) the clarity of Lucent's standard terms for their EKE patents
     that have been rumored to apply to SRP,
(2) their refusal to answer the question of whether they actually apply, or
(3) the clarity of other aspects of the (hard-fought-for) Lucent IPR
     statement regarding SRP.
Since some of these issues may be more easily resolved than others,
unclear IPR opinion statements like yours may merely obfuscate
an underlying solvable problem.

Furthermore, any of the above concerns may be less significant for
SRP in other circumstances, and may not apply to other equivalent
methods that were *not* fully considered by the IPS WG.

>specifications seems useful.

I noticed that you didn't directly answer that question.

Sure, we all want the trains to run on time.  If the sole interest is in
increasing WG efficiency, then selectively rewriting or ignoring
the rules to ban wholesale entire classes of technology, or otherwise
dictating policy to reduce the opportunity for open discussion,
is clearly a way to get there. But do we really want to encourage
such solutions?

Allowing such statements to be made by some people, for the sake
of WG expedience, but not otherwise, seems like a dangerous
double standard that sacrifices IETF principles of fairness and
openness. Is making life easy for the WG chairs, area directors,
and other privileged IETF members really an overriding priority?

Vague statements and rumors about IPR are (and should be)
discouraged by RFC 2026 and related IETF policy.
Ideally, such statements should be strongly discouraged by
*all parties*, in an RFC context or otherwise.  And yes, I know
only too well that IPR notices submitted by many companies fall
into the "vague" category.

There should be no double standard; Rules against creating FUD,
regardless of intent, should apply uniformly and be uniformly enforced
for everyone, including area directors, (ex-)WG chairs, the IAB,
as well as all other participants.

-- David Jablon