Subject: RE: Motion to abandon Sender ID

From: "Harry Katz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 12:12:02 -0700

On Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:18 PM, [email-masked] wrote:

> On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 19:28:32 -0400, Yakov Shafranovich 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > 
> > A few comments. First of all, we do not know whether the IPR claims 
> > extend to SPF classic or not.
> 
> You are correct that we don't know whether SPF or SPF2 is 
> covered by pending patent claims from Microsoft.  However, we 
> *do* know that any such claims are *not* covered by 
> Microsoft's license agreement.  Thus, even if we were to 
> adopt Sender ID as the standard, should Microsoft 
> subsequently be granted a patent covering the SPF2 record 
> format, it would no longer be possible to deploy Sender ID 
> without a new license from Microsoft.
> 
> If, at this point, sender ID were derailed by a patent from 
> Microsoft over SPF, I think this would pretty clearly 
> demonstrate bad faith on Microsoft's part.  Since we have 
> been instructed to assume good faith on the part of all 
> parties, I think this means operating under the assumption that:
> 
> 1) The pending patent rights granted by Microsoft's Sender ID 
> agreement are sufficient to deploy Sender ID (at least for 
> the subset of software authors who find the conditions of the 
> agreement acceptable), and therefore
> 
> 2) Microsoft does not have any pending claims over the SPF 
> record format.
> 
> So yes, anybody, even Microsoft, might have patent claims 
> that might prohibit just about any recommendation of the 
> MARID working group. 
> But we still have to make progress, and the best we can do is 
> deal with the most likely scenario, which is that Microsoft 
> probably has applied for patents, that the patents probably 
> cover the portions of Sender ID they have offered to 
> license--namely the pra and or core documents--and finally 
> that until we have more information, none of the MARID 
> proposals is any more or less likely to be affected by 
> third-party patent holders.

Our IPR disclosure filed with the IETF and available at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/microsoft-ipr-draft-ietf-marid-core.txt is
quite specific and covers the marid-core and marid-pra specs used in
combination.  That's all.  We do not, to the best of my knowledge, have
any IPR claims related to either marid-protocol, which describes the
SPF2 record format, or marid-submitter.

---

From: Chuck Mead <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:54:29 -0400

Harry Katz wrote:

| Our IPR disclosure filed with the IETF and available at
| http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/microsoft-ipr-draft-ietf-marid-core.txt is
| quite specific and covers the marid-core and marid-pra specs used in
| combination.  That's all.  We do not, to the best of my knowledge, have
| any IPR claims related to either marid-protocol, which describes the
| SPF2 record format, or marid-submitter.

Harry,
~         Thank you veeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrry much for this! This is the
clearest statement I have seen yet about what's covered in the Patent
App and a clear signal to me that I've been right about what I've been
saying about SPF. THANK YOU!

- --
[email-masked], head geek
http://moongroup.com

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:53:25 -0400

> SPF2 record format, or marid-submitter. 

Your IPR disclosure does not stop IPR claims coming later on. What I am 
wondering if whether your lawyers can provide a written statement 
stating with absolute certainty that no other drafts are affected. I 
contacted your legal department back in March of 2004 on this. I still 
did not receive a "no" on this.

Yakov

---

From: "Chris Haynes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 22:38:56 +0100

Harry,

In a discussion elsewhere there has been uncertainty as to the exact meaning and
implications of the phrase 'used in combination' in your statement below.

If you were able to confirm that the Microsoft disclosure / IPR claims do not
cover the marid-core spec. taken in isolation, that would be extremely helpful
and could allay some people's concerns.

Chris Haynes

 "Harry Katz" helpfully stated:

<snip>

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:19:19 -0400

I would add to this that the same phrase appears in the IPR disclosure 
itself 
(http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/microsoft-ipr-draft-ietf-marid-core.txt):

"C. If an Internet-Draft or RFC includes multiple parts and it is not
reasonably apparent which part of such Internet-Draft or RFC is
alleged to be covered by the patent information disclosed in Section
V(A) or V(B), it is helpful if the discloser identifies here the
sections of the Internet-Draft or RFC that are alleged to be so
covered.

Both Sender ID: Authenticating E-mail <draft-ietf-marid-core-03.txt>
and Purported Responsible Address in E-mail Messages
<draft-ietf-marid-pra-00.txt> in combination.
"