Subject: Re: [Techspec] RFC Author Count and IPR

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 13:59:03 -0700 (PDT)

*> 
  *> Bob -
  *> 
  *> Following Jari's link to the document (ID) with 20 authors I found:
  *> 
  *> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-pwe3-dynamic-ms-pw-00.txt
  *> 
  *> which lists 3 editors on the front page and includes a section (17)
  *> titled "Author Information" which includes 20 addresses.

Lucy,

You are suggesting that the definition of "author" is determined by some
tool that produces the pretty graph.  I don't think so.  In all
documentation related to the RFC Editor, an author is a person listed
on the first page.  I cannot explain what was in the mind of the
person writing the tool.

Bob Braden

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---

From: "Lucy E. Lynch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 14:14:22 -0700 (PDT)

> on the first page.  I cannot explain what was in the mind of the

Bob -

This is exactly the question I'm trying to get clarity on. Russ's
initial email implied that there may be a submerged IPR issue if
we limit the number of authors listed on the front page AND hold that
document "authors" continue to hold IP rights. I don't know enough
about the history of IP ownership vs acknowledged authorship to be
able to tell how serious an issue this may be.

Let me try re-stating my question. Is there a one-to-one relationship 
between the listed authors on an IETF document and ownership of the
given document's Intellectual Property?

- lel

-- 
Lucy E. Lynch 				Academic User Services
Computing Center			University of Oregon
llynch  @darkwing.uoregon.edu		(541) 346-1774

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 10:46:23 +0200

> given document's Intellectual Property? 
I can answer that one...

No.

---

From: "Lucy E. Lynch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 06:42:06 -0700 (PDT)

>> given document's Intellectual Property? 

Thank you!

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 07:18:20 -0700

L2,
The IETF's policy here has a couple of problems I think - and that is that
it limits the number of parties that can claim control over a document and
in doing so limits the representation of legal ownership or rights to the
filing.

This is a very bad thing, since each of those authors has legal control over
their portions of the work or derivatives of their contribution within the
work itself. I.e. they are all legal signatories to any conveyance of
copyrights or derivative use rights including implementaiton rights.

It also seems to limit who can converse with the Secretariat or WG in regard
to the management of any particular Document's Initiative which may prevent
legitimate IP owners from interacting with the IETF's processes.

Perhaps we need to apply the same standards to these that are applied to US
Patents, and BTW did you know that a person licensing someone to use a
patent can revoke that license for cause 20 years later...  that is an
important statement since it means that anything can be pulled out from
under anyone these days. The use of the IP for reprinting is Copyright
controlled - but the implementation of actual code or a 'system from the
description' is more specific to patent protection and should be dealt with
as such since it is not 'republication' but commercial/private use of the
described IP that is being dealt with.

The point is that the IP Control and Transfer model is to complex and needs
to be made simpler if the Trust idea is to work at all IMHO. For instance,
you have a piece of IP that is patented and there are four listed
Inventor's - that has very specific rights attached to it and it generally
similar if not the same for Author's of copyrighted works. And for this
example say one of those Four Inventor's is dissatisfied with a buy-out or
other matter and decides to rescind the transfer of the IP... there are of
course legal issues and processes to be addressed, but it does happen.

The point is that in any IP licensing model its critical to get continuing
agreement as to the intent and willingness of the AUTHORS/INVENTORS to
continue participating and that means that there needs to be an ongoing
process for getting that formal release. Say a RFC for instance was derived
from a document that had four authors and one of them decided to leave the
Vetting Team that submitted the document (notice also I snuck a new
Governance term in - "Vetting Team")... Now when each revision to that I-D
that is done the same four people would have to agree to the ongoing license
to use, which the one who left can clearly say no to... What does this
cause? nothing inside the IETF since its use rights are protected by the
Research Exemptions but anyone else? could be messy.

Todd

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lucy E. Lynch" <[email-masked]>
To: "Harald Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; "Bob Braden" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Techspec] RFC Author Count and IPR

> Ipr-wg mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: "Lucy E. Lynch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 09:19:01 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 25 May 2006, [email-masked] wrote:

> On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 06:42:06AM -0700, Lucy E. Lynch wrote:
> 	not knowing Harolds legal background or current standing w/
> 	the ABA, (or EU equivalent) I think that Bob's recommendation
> 	on getting actual legal advice on your question puts you and
> 	the organziation represented (IETF) on much better grounding
> 	than a simple; "I can answer that... no" on an email list.
>
> 	just my (uninformed) opinion.

Bill -

Understood, as I say, I'm just trying to get a handle the range of 
community opinion(s) and the scope of the problem. This issue
cuts across TechSpec, the IPR WG, the RFC-Editor's office, and
the IETF Trust (as well as individual authors etc.). Everyone sees 
this slightly differently. Before we ask for advise, I'd like to 
understand the problem set.

> --bill