Subject: Patent disclosure

From: "Tom Gindin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 14:40:01 -0400

IBM has submitted patent applications in a technology area that  may be
employed by the PKIX working group in developing its final specifications.
The technology area  relates to the use of certificateHold for
Non-Repudiation.  This may prove relevant to some parts of the
draft-ietf-pkix-ocspv2-02.txt and to some parts of
draft-ietf-pkix-new-part1-06.txt.  IBM is unable to provide more specific
information regarding the application, until such time as the application
is published or the patent is issued.

IBM, in support of IETF intellectual property rights procedures, is willing
to offer non-exclusive licenses to issued patents, upon written request,
under reasonable and non-discriminatory  terms and conditions, in
accordance with IBM's usual licensing practices, when there is a necessary
dependence upon these IBM patents to implement  PKIX specifications.

          Tom Gindin

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 18:54:24 -0700

At 2:40 PM -0400 5/30/01, Tom Gindin wrote:
>IBM is unable to provide more specific

IBM often does The Right Thing with respect to patents used in IETF 
protocols, so I am not eager to kick them around. However, the above 
statement is simply not true. IBM is quite able to provide more 
specific information: it is choosing not to. And by choosing not to, 
the PKIX WG cannot move forwards with either document with any 
understanding about what doing so means.

It would be great if IBM would reconsider its choice to be almost 
silent as soon as possible.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium