Subject: [DNSOP] IPR disclosure related to draft-ietf-dnsop-root-loopback

From: Allison Mankin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:24:49 -0500

Expected that this would create an automatic mail to the WG but it
apparently is not going to, so here is a signal boost for a disclosure
filed yesterday:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2539/

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 13:39:22 +0100

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 11:24:49AM -0500,
 Allison Mankin <[email-masked]> wrote 

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2539/

For the brave and the crazy, the text of the patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/US8874790

---

From: "Niall O'Reilly" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 16:04:48 +0000

On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:39:22 +0000,
> http://www.google.com/patents/US8874790

  This was filed in 2011.
  
  By that time, I expect that there must have been a considerable body
  of prior art.

  Niall O'Reilly

---

From: David Conrad <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:09:54 -0500

> On Feb 27, 2015, at 11:04 AM, Niall O'Reilly <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

2011?

Considering I was mirroring the root zone on my laptop in 1996 (BSDi on a Hinote Ultra II FTW) and doing the same thing with a root zone I signed myself and with validation turned on with BIND 8.2 to test DNSSEC in 1999 (NetBSD on a Sony Vaio PGC-505 I think), yeah, I'd say so. I suspect there might even be some stuff in the BIND mailing list archives about it...

Sigh.

Regards,
-drc

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 09:18:44 -0800

> Niall O'Reilly <mailto:[email-masked]>
> Friday, February 27, 2015 8:04 AM

yes. as just one example, neustar/ultradns was offering this
configuration for sale before this filing date. also, i have used this
configuration in commerce, though i did not specifically offer it for
sale, many times dating back to 1991 (when i had ., COM, and DEC.COM in
stealth secondary zones, on an intermittently connected network.)

however, more tellingly look at the word "and" in claim 1 and the
paragraph which follows it:

> and
> a registry operation software configured to manage one or more top
> level domains and store a subset of top level domain data of the
> managed top level domains on the one or more TLD name servers, wherein
> the subset includes records of one or more name servers whose network
> addresses are within the boundary of the network and wherein the
> subset is less than a full set of the top level domain data; 

what this means is, a simple implementation like kumari/hoffman would
not infringe on claim 1 (and subsidiary claims 2-9). whereas claim 10
(and subclaims 11-20) is even more restrictive in what it covers,
requiring also the local provision of an SLD. claims 10-20 are also
invalidated by neustar's prior commercial offers.

claim 21 is a rollup, and not innovative compared to claims 1-10 or
claims 11-20. interestingly, it fails to address the hybrid-server model
(rdns and adns in the same server) wherein no queries are made between
those functions, since the adns data is directly reachable by the rdns
within the shared server image. so, claim 21 can never infringe on
kumari/hoffman, not even if the TLD and SLD requirements are also met.

> Allison Mankin <mailto:[email-masked]>
> Thursday, February 26, 2015 8:24 AM

thank you alison. but until verisign chooses a license regime for this
patent, we won't know how to respond. it is this working group's
cultural bias to avoid IPR, which means that if verisign doesn't
self-declare the "royalty-free" option, IETF will have to engage lawyers
and experts to determine whether this draft will have to be modified to
avoid verisign's asserted rights. having verisign make the first move
would save us all a lot of time and money. so this statement:

> Due to the early state of the internet-draft, coverage of the claims
> versus existing text is difficult to ascertain, a licensing
> declaration to be provided later, if required ... 

is one i hope your team will vacate, and do the necessary research to
determine what your license regime would be with respect to the
kumari/hoffman draft as currently written.

-- 
Paul Vixie

---

From: "Jiankang Yao" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 22:09:44 +0800

From: Paul Vixie
Date: 2015-02-28 01:18
To: Niall O'Reilly
CC: dnsop
Subject: Re: [DNSOP] IPR disclosure related to draft-ietf-dnsop-root-loopback

 > thank you alison. but until verisign chooses a license regime for this patent, we won't know how to respond. it is this working group's cultural bias to avoid IPR, which means that if verisign doesn't self-declare the "royalty-free" option, IETF will have t
  > engage lawyers and experts to determine whether this draft will have to be modified to avoid verisign's asserted rights. having verisign make the first move would save us all a lot of time and money. so this statement:
 >
>

agree it here. IETF is unwilling to standardardize some technology which has to be paid by the user.

---

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 13:39:35 -0500

> but until verisign chooses a license regime for this patent, we won't know how to respond. it is this working group's cultural bias to avoid IPR, which means that if verisign doesn't self-declare the "royalty-free" option, IETF will have to engage lawyers and experts to determine whether this draft will have to be modified to avoid verisign's asserted rights. having verisign make the first move would save us all a lot of time and money. so this statement:
> 
>> Due to the early state of the internet-draft, coverage of the claims versus existing text is difficult to ascertain, a licensing declaration to be provided later, if required ... 
> 
> is one i hope your team will vacate, and do the necessary research to determine what your license regime would be with respect to the kumari/hoffman draft as currently written.
> 

The same has happened with the IPSec patent from versign. Obvious prior art and the same unclear license policy. I got scolded at by versign representatives at one of the last ietfs for pointing this out. I wonder how we as a community need to act on this continued counter-productive behaviour.

Paul

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 10:56:16 -0800

> Paul Wouters <mailto:[email-masked]>
> Saturday, February 28, 2015 10:39 AM
>
> The same has happened with the IPSec patent from versign. Obvious
> prior art and the same unclear license policy. I got scolded at by
> versign representatives at one of the last ietfs for pointing this
> out. I wonder how we as a community need to act on this continued
> counter-productive behaviour.

nothing. the people at verisign are smart, constructive, and have their
shoulders to the same wheels as the rest of us. while i would like to
see the POISED WG reconvene to take a stronger stand about IPR, and in
particular, to require an unambiguous statement as to an IPR holder's
belief in the similarities between a WG draft and some patent -- rather
than "it might be a problem, we don't know yet, we're just warning you",
the fact is that many of our colleagues inside tech companies have their
incentive compensation linked to the number of patent filings an
employee is responsible for.

when i first heard about <http://www.google.com/patents/US8484377> i
went to people i know inside google and asked that this be moved into
their "royalty-free" category. in general they (and i suspect verisign
also) don't want to constrain public benefit innovation so much as to
create trade bait against other IPR holders, and once they know for sure
that one of their patents is capable of constraining public benefit
innovation and thus making the whole internet less safe (because most
IETF WG's will refuse to standardize something where royalties must be
paid), they'll do the right thing.

please, everybody, don't point fingers and shout "rent seeking
behaviour!" when the actual facts are more nuanced and the track record
of these companies is good. see here, for example:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4156614/google-opa-open-source-patent-pledge-wont-sue-unless-attacked

-- 
Paul Vixie

---

From: Rubens Kuhl <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 18:00:47 -0300

> 
> when i first heard about <http://www.google.com/patents/US8484377> <http://www.google.com/patents/US8484377> i went to people i know inside google and asked that this be moved into their "royalty-free" category. in general they (and i suspect verisign also) don't want to constrain public benefit innovation so much as to create trade bait against other IPR holders, and once they know for sure that one of their patents is capable of constraining public benefit innovation and thus making the whole internet less safe (because most IETF WG's will refuse to standardize something where royalties must be paid), they'll do the right thing.
> 
> please, everybody, don't point fingers and shout "rent seeking behaviour!" when the actual facts are more nuanced and the track record of these companies is good. see here, for example:
> 
> http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4156614/google-opa-open-source-patent-pledge-wont-sue-unless-attacked <http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4156614/google-opa-open-source-patent-pledge-wont-sue-unless-attacked>

The difference here is while Google has always maintained a public instance on not weaponising IPRs, every Verisign investor conference for the last few quarters mentioned monetising IPR. At some point either analysts will start calling out on them from not getting IPR-related revenue, or they will start actually doing it. I totally agree that they haven't done it so far, but they are on record as saying they will. 

Rubens

---

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 16:30:49 -0500 (EST)

On Sat, 28 Feb 2015, Paul Vixie wrote:

> shoulders to the same wheels as the rest of us.

I don't doubt they are smart and work hard. I wasn't stating otherwise.

> employee is responsible for.

Trying to get a pay raise at the expense of the IETF community is not
behaviour I would want to condone.

> and thus making the whole internet less safe (because most

I don't see their legal department's IPR answer containing language that
states that. Instead it says "it's too early to see if we would charge
you for your^Wour invention".

Does the "right thing" include dropping patents we point out are clearly
marred by prior art? Does the "right thing" include ensuring common
sense protocol extensions or updates are available to the entire
community royalty free? The IPR disclosure allows them to state exactly
what their intend is long before they are rewarded with a patent.

> of these companies is good. see here, for example:

The recent track record of Verisign actually is not good. They are
flailing patent applications.

Let's pick https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1924/ which is now over 2
years old and is still waiting for an update on their intended license
conditions.

My company also financially encourages patents for their (defensive)
portfolio.  I have not filed any patents and have no desire to do
so. While I did point out that "prior art" published in an RFC serves
a similar goal to a "defensive patent", I haven't convinced them yet to
hand out financial rewards for RFCs s I've written. That still does not
cause me to write patents for obvious software "inventions" that we
would like to see attain broad deployment for the betterment of the
internet.

Paul

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 14:06:26 -0800

> Saturday, February 28, 2015 1:30 PM
> ...

that sounds judgemental, even if passively. many people we both respect
have their names on handfuls of patents. it's how those patents are used
that should concern us. as heinlein wrote, "an armed society is a polite
society."
> ...
> marred by prior art?

no.

> Does the "right thing" include ensuring common
> community royalty free?

usually.

> The IPR disclosure allows them to state exactly

and yet, if i were an employee or officer of verisign, i could not even
speculate as to those matters; if you're expecting anyone who knows
anything to say anything here, then you're going to be disappointed.
> ...

if you have a specific complaint, take it to the WG chairs, who can
follow the IETF IPR process to get that statement amended or retracted.
if the IETF policy isn't to your liking, you know what to do about that,
also. in no case is kvetching about it here going to do more good than harm.
> would like to see attain broad deployment for the betterment of the

damn. damn! write the patents! then you'll have standing within $dayjob
to argue for how they ought to be licensed. and would give $dayjob a
seat at the table whenever "patent reform" is being workshopped.

here's a closely related story. dnssec key management has been the
subject of much debate. one unaffiliated researcher designed a complete
system which was beautiful and practical, and he wrote a couple of
internet drafts that described it, which were very easy to read, very
well written. and, he patented the approach. i (speaking at that time
for ISC) informed the DNSEXT community that BIND would not implement an
ietf standard that required royalties be paid to an IPR holder by our
commercial users, and that if they wanted to adopt this encumbered
approach, they would be building DNSSEC without BIND's help. others
spoke up similarly. i asked the patent holder to reconsider, and to
license his work in a way that would make it relevant, and he said "no."
i pointed out that he'd make zero dollars either way, and he said "no."
i asked him why he was willing to waste his time and scorch the earth
creating such fine technology that had absolutely no future. he said
"because verisign is making a lot of money from DNS, and they should
have to pay for stuff like this." i walked away, sure that i should not
say what came next.

but if i were verisign living in that world i would have a large
defensive patent portfolio to protect the interests of my shareholders,
my employees and their families, and my customers. your mileage may
vary, but please reconsider any moral judgement that may come into your
heart, because this is a very nuanced situation and is not subject to
black/white interpretations.

-- 
Paul Vixie