Subject: question about IETF policy on RF patent policies

From: Daniel Weitzner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:09:03 -0400

Hi all,

A couple of days ago I ran across a communiqué from a group called
the GSC, a collection of various standards organizations. This group
issued a resolution, attached below, voicing its "opposition to
mandatory compensation-free licensing provisions." As W3C has just
adopted a patent policy that requires royalty-free licensing for those 
chosing to participate in the development of a given specification, this
caught my attention.

IETF was listed a special guest at the event that produced this 
resolution. Does this mean that the IETF supports the resolution or 
participated in its development?

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Danny Weitzner
Chair, W3C Patent Policy WG

----
 From the press release:
See more at http://www.tsacc.ca/e/

"Senior representatives of the world’s leading radio, information and
communications technologies standards organizations met 27 April through
May 1, 2003, in Ottawa, Canada, in a continuing show of support for the
world-wide communications standards development processes and a renewed
commitment towards improving communication collaboration between their
respective organizations....Participants included the International
Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector
(ITU-T), participating organizations included the Australian
Communications Industry Forum (ACIF), Association of Radio Industries
and Businesses (ARIB) of Japan, the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI), the United States’ Accredited Standards
Committee T1-Telecommunications (Committee T1) and Telecommunications
Industry Association (TIA),  the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU),  the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan, the
Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea, and the
Telecommunications Standards Advisory Council of Canada (TSACC).
Special guests included representatives from 3GPP, 3GPP2, the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI), the ATM Forum, CITEL, IETF, SCTE,
and IEEE."

RESOLUTION GSC-8/10:  Patent Policies

GSC-8

recognizing

a)      that the patent policies of the majority of standards
development organizations include provisions for standards users to
license standards-essential intellectual property under reasonable and
non-discriminatory compensatory or compensation-free (e.g. royalty free)
terms and conditions;

b)      that in some uses the term "open standards" no longer refers to
openness in the standards development process, but is taken to mean
compensation-free licensing of intellectual property;

c)      that there is a trend in some user communities and  some
standards development organizations in support of patent policies with
enforced compensation-free provisions for standards implementers;

d)      that not all intellectual property holders are
members/participants of standards development organizations;

concludes

that protection of intellectual property rights is necessary to ensure
that the best and most innovative technology is made available for
inclusion in standards and that such innovation should be encouraged;

resolves

that the participating standards organizations of GSC support reasonable
and non-discriminatory intellectual property licensing provisions and
voice their opposition to mandatory compensation-free licensing provisions.

-- 
Daniel J. Weitzner                              +1.617.253.8036 (MIT)
World Wide Web Consortium                       +1.202.364.4750 (DC)
Technology & Society Domain Leader              <[email-masked]>
http://www.w3.org/People/Weitzner.html

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

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:31:39 -0400 (EDT)

Hi Danny,

I was present as an invited huest at the recent GSC meeting where this 
resolution was developed and approved.  Note that *I* was there, the "IETF" 
was not - I was not (and am not) empowered to speak for the IETF.

I did talk with the editor of the resolution and made some suggestions to
make the text clearer, so I suppose one could say that I "participated" in
its development.

But as a guest (the IETF is not a member of the GSC), I was not in a
position to support or not support the resolution - so the fact that I was
in the room should not be taken to mean that I took (or have) any 
particular position on the resolution and, since I do not speak for 
the IETF, that the IETF took any particular position on the resolution.  

In my opinion, the only way that the IETF could be seen as taking a
position on any topic is to follow the IETF standards process (publish an
ID, discuss the ID on a mailing list and maybe in a face to face meeting,
issue an IETF last call then have the IESG approve publication of the ID)
- that clearly did not happen in regards to the GSC resolution so it can
not be said that the IETF has expressed any opinion on the GSC resolution.

Scott

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 08:51:59 +0200

Danny,

since the resolution

> voice their opposition to mandatory compensation-free licensing

seems at odds with the language of draft-ietf-ipr-technology-rights:

   In general, IETF working groups prefer technologies with no known IPR
   claims or, for technologies with claims against them, an offer of
   royalty-free licensing.

and draft-ietf-ipr-wg-guidelines:

5.6 Licensing Terms

   Licensing terms vary across a range from no license required at all
   to prohibitive.  In general, working groups show a preference for
   technologies with IPR considerations in approximately the following
   order.  This list does not constitute a rule, and every working group
   needs to take its own circumstances into account.

   o  License not required.

   o  Licensed with no restrictions.

   o  IPR licensed with no material restrictions, e.g. no trademark
      license required.

   o  IPR licensed for a particular field of use but with no other
      material restrictions, e.g. licensed solely for implementations
      complying with a standard.

   o  IPR licensed under royalty-free terms and reasonable and
      non-discriminatory restrictions.

   o  IPR licensed under reasonable and non-discriminatory restrictions.
      This may include payment of a royalty.

   o  IPR which is otherwise licensable.

   o  IPR which is not licensable, i.e. which is only available as an
      implementation.

   o  IPR which is not available under any conditions.

I think you can take it as given that the IETF does not support the 
statement.

(actually, the IETF might support the *resolution* part - this group, too, 
has had a large number of participants opposing mandatory compensation-free 
licensing conditions - but I cannot imagine any situation where the IETF 
could support the *conclusion* above.....)

                     Harald

---

From: Daniel Weitzner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 09:37:22 -0400

Thanks, Scott, for the clarification.

Best,

Danny

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 15:28:54 -0700

I think that this is a problem Harald and you are right to point this out.
The draft seeks to reinforce a non-commercial infrastructure only and I am
concerned about antitrust from prohibiting commercial standards.

The term "prefer" is the problem. WG's are not political entities and they
don't get preferences. They get operating guidelines that are organizational
wide, as per being "Fair and Open". This is mandatory since WG's are vetting
communities and not political in nature and what we are referring to is a
organizational policy that is not set in the individual WG's but rather on
an Organization Wide basis.

Todd

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 20:06:27 -0400

> an Organization Wide basis.

Working Groups make decisions on technology in order to meet the goals
of the IETF.  They include many factors while evaluating technology.
One of those is IPR (in particular patents and licensing terms).  Just
as they prefer a protocol that is scalable, they tend to prefer
protocols with certain levels of encumbrance and licensing terms.  So
"prefer" is the right term.  They make choices, and have preferences,
along a number of axes when evaluating technology.

.swb

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 17:36:13 -0700

Scott
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott W Brim" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: question about IETF policy on RF patent policies

> of the IETF.  They include many factors while evaluating technology.

This is OK too as long as the exact same factors are used to evaluate all
the WG's efforts. There is this problem with this phrase Fair and Open
again.

> protocols with certain levels of encumbrance and licensing terms.

And I say again, WG's do not get a prefereence, becuase that implies that
they can change their minds and appliy these to some efforts and not to
others and that eliminates and sembelence of Fair and Open.

> So

Exactly -which is exactly why they DONT get to have preferences. This is a
global standards practice, not a baking club where we are trading recipes
for oatmeal raisin cookies. The idea is that each and every effort gets the
same treatment so that no one is granted any favoritism. The language here
is broken becuase of this and PREFER is a bad word. Ask the lawyers if you
want.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:23:58 +0200

--On onsdag, juni 11, 2003 15:28:54 -0700 todd glassey 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> don't get preferences. They get operating guidelines that are
> organizational wide, as per being "Fair and Open". This is mandatory
> since WG's are vetting communities and not political in nature and what
> we are referring to is a organizational policy that is not set in the
> individual WG's but rather on an Organization Wide basis.

It is IETF operational policy to let working groups have preferences.

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 11:03:26 -0700

Harald - I am not debating that, what I am asking you is if everyone who is
a WG Chair gets to decide what is their preference for their WG and so there
is no real standardization, how is it possible to competitive or tangential
initiatives would get the same unbiased, open and fair reception and space
to pursue the standard?

The answer is that you cant and don't...

Todd

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 00:00:46 -0400

would the WG chair please consider taking corrective action against Mr. 
Glassey for continuing to make unsupportable statements about areas
in which he knows nothing?  this is disruptive and abusive to the group.

---

From: "Robert Barr " <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 22:28:49 -0700

As a member of the group, I find T Glassey's contributions interesting, not
disruptive or abusive.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Keith Moore
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 9:01 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 10:33:52 -0700

Keith, your counsel at the University of Tennessee will be hearing from me
formally Monday.  Your actions here are abusive and in fact constitute a
tortuous interference with my attempting to bring some provable stability
into this standards body, and its time the legal people at UTK get a real
snapshot of what you are opening them up to.

Its time that the IETF's sponsors knew that they are going to be liable for
what their people do here in this forum.

Todd Glassey