Subject: Re: Patents, IETF proposals and papers

From: Nitin H Vaidya <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 14:08:08 -0500 (CDT)

>> From [email-masked] Fri Jun 30 12:43:40 2000
  >> From: Darrell Shane <[email-masked]>
  >> To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
  >> Subject: Patents, IETF proposals and papers
  >> 
  >> Hello, 
  >> 
  >> Are authors / inventors of routing protocols patenting their ideas?  
  >> What are the implications with regard to a subsequent IETF proposal, 
  >> and conference or journal publications?  What are the drawbacks?

I don't know the answer to your question, but on a related
topic, you might be interested in looking at Phil Karn's
page on the patenting issue ... it makes for an interesting
reading, even if you happen to disagree with him:

	http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/patents/patents.html

I hope IETF would not knowingly standardize something for
which some idiot plans to make people pay-for-use. I presume
IETF might standardized something for which XYZ has a patent,
but only if that XYZ agrees to waive the patent rights.

- nitin

  >> Thanks,
  >> Darrell Shane

---

From: Miguel Sanchez <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 22:22:07 +0000

Hi,

Phil's proposed controversy (criticism) about the IP laws and rights is
right on target. I do not know if some routing algorithms are (or are
being) patented, but I detected some controversy some months ago about the
RFC 2026 section 10 about IP rights. It seems that not all group members (or
algorithms authors) share the same view regarding to follow the cited
reference framework.

Most if not all the IETF work is available to the public (for free). I think
it should be this way while things are community-reviewed (i.e: I do not
think it is fair to get some help from other people but to retain IP by
means of patenting the invention now improved).

Maybe you will be surprised to know that IP protection swings a lot from
country to country. To my reduced knowledge, USA laws cover a wider range of
things that can be patented. So maybe certain claims can only be granted is
some countries (i.e: algorithms).

Regards,

Miguel Sanchez