Subject: [mpls] IPR Disclosure: Alcatel Lucent's Statement about IPR related to draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07

From: IETF Secretariat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 11:10:21 -0700 (PDT)

Dear Martin Vigoureux, Dinesh Mohan, Nurit Sprecher, Ben Niven-Jenkins, Huub Helvoort, Yaacov Weingarten, Lieven Levrau, Annamaria Fulignoli, Rolf Winter, David Allan, Italo Busi, Enrique Hernandez-Valencia, Vincenzo Sestito:

An IPR disclosure that pertains to your Internet-Draft entitled "MPLS-TP OAM
Framework" (draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework) was submitted to the IETF
Secretariat on 2010-08-05 and has been posted on the "IETF Page of Intellectual
Property Rights Disclosures" (https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1369/). The title
of the IPR disclosure is "Alcatel Lucent's Statement about IPR related to
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07."

The IETF Secretariat

---

From: Curtis Villamizar <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:12:54 -0400

In message <[email-masked]>
IETF Secretariat writes:
>  
> Dear Martin Vigoureux, Dinesh Mohan, Nurit Sprecher, Ben
> Niven-Jenkins, Huub Helvoort, Yaacov Weingarten, Lieven Levrau,
> Annamaria Fulignoli, Rolf Winter, David Allan, Italo Busi, Enrique
> Hernandez-Valencia, Vincenzo Sestito:
>  
> An IPR disclosure that pertains to your Internet-Draft entitled
> "MPLS-TP OAM Framework" (draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework) was
> submitted to the IETF Secretariat on 2010-08-05 and has been posted on
> the "IETF Page of Intellectual Property Rights Disclosures"
> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1369/). The title of the IPR
> disclosure is "Alcatel Lucent's Statement about IPR related to

The patent (Europe's copy) is in PDF form at:

  https://data.epo.org/publication-server/document?PN=EP1753169%20EP%201753169&iDocId=6984847&iPosition=1&iFormat=0

The title is:

   Method, network node and MPLS network for monitoring a tandem
   connection in a MPLS telecommunication network

It applies only to a method for handling a tandem connection and
applies to a technique which puts a special value in the label or EXP
field and does not use label stacking as the means to support the
tandem connection.

    [0040] However; according to the present invention, differently
    from the label stacking according to the above mentioned RFC3032,
    the input node of the tandem con- nection inserts such a tandem
    connection header after the already present switching header H1,
    H2, ..., H8.

The above paragraph specifically cites this limitation of the patent.
As long at tandem connections continue to use label stacking as per
MPLS hierarchy and don't use a special value in the label or EXP field
to indicate a tandem connection, which is in no way suggested in
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07, then this patent does not seem to
be applicable.

The claims start on page 8.  In my reading of
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07 I did not find anything that
resembled inserting a tandem connection header with some predefined
label or EXP value after the switching header.
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07 is using label stacking as per
RFC3032, which is excluded from the patent (as it would invalidate it,
given that label stacking in RFC3032 predated any patent application.

The GAL and ACH identify an OAM flow, they do not identify a tandem
connection, which seems to be the entire basis of the patent.
Otherwise it is label stacking as we've always known it.

I am not a lawyer nor am I a certified patent examiner.  This is just
an opinion based on my technical knowledge in this area.  Please get a
lawyer to confirm this opinion.

Maybe Italo or someone else at Alcatel Lucent can explain why anyone
thought this patent was applicable to
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework-07 since the IPR statement doesn't
even point to the one and only section of the draft related to tandom
connections.

Curtis