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Legal requests

The IETF publishes all legal requests, subpoenas, and responses.

Most types of IETF documents are publicly available from on this website, including RFCs, Internet-Drafts, mailing list archives, intellectual property rights disclosures, working group activity, and Meeting Proceedings.

If obtaining IETF documents from the public IETF web pages is not sufficient then parties engaged in litigation relating to technologies that use or incorporate IETF standards may wish to obtain information directly from the IETF, in the form of documents, responses to questions, or other tangible items. This is likely to occur when the litigant believes that some activity that occurred within the IETF process, or some intellectual property relating to an IETF standard, is directly related to the case in question. The term "documents" is often defined broadly by subpoenas and can include both electronic and hard copy sources, such as working group session attendance lists ("Blue Sheets"), minutes, Internet-Drafts, RFCs, and emails.

To obtain such information, the litigant may send a Documentation Request seeking the information to the IETF. Request and response procedures are discussed at Legal Request Procedures.

The IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) has a Fees Policy for Legal Requests that imposes standard fees to produce information and authenticate documents in response to subpoenas and other legal requests. More information and a schedule of fees can be found as part of the Legal Requests Procedures.

For legal requests prior to the formation of the LLC, please refer to the IAOC archives.

Documentation Requests, Subpoenas, and Suits Received

Information below is in the process of being updated and is currently incomplete. Please contact support@ietf.org if you are looking for something specific.

2024

May

  • SNMP Research Inc. et al. v. Broadcom Inc. et al. | RFC Editor
  • SNMP Research Inc. et al. v. Broadcom Inc. et al. | IETF Secretariat
  • Netsocket Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. | RFC Editor

March

January

2023

October

August

  • In the Matter of Certain Video Processing Devices and Components Thereof. | RFC Editor

July

May

March

February

  • Orckit Corporation v. Cisco Systems, Inc. | IETF Secretariat
  • Orckit Corporation v. Cisco Systems, Inc. | RFC Editor
  • Inter partes review (IPR) before the United States Patent and Trademark Office | RFC Editor

January

2022

October

  • Inter partes review (IPR) between Netflix, Inc. and Robocast Inc. before the United States Patent and Trademark Office | RFC Editor

August

April

February

January

2021

November

September

April

March

  • Inter partes review (IPR) before the United States Patent and Trademark Office | RFC Editor Declaration
  • inter partes review (IPR) before the United States Patent and Trademark Office | RFC Editor Declaration
  • Inter partes review (IPR) before the United States Patent and Trademark Office | IETF Secretariat

February

January

2020

October

July

May

April

Jenam Tech, LLC v. Google, LLC | IETF Secretariat

2019

September

August

July

June

April

March

February