Subject: Failing of IPR Filing Page when makling updates in re LTANS and other filings.

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:02:14 -0700

Folks - I found several working flaws with the IPR disclosure page when I
went back to the IPR201 filing this AM to add several additional Internet
Draft's for notice of Patent Controls; As to the IPR Page - it does not
allow for updates of already filed IPR Statement's to include new IETF
documents which violate the patent rights after the posting of the IPR
Notice.

So then how does one add more IETF infringing document's to an
existing IPR declaration.

That said we wanted to add several more document's which infringe on the
patent protected IP's which we have refused to grant any rights to the IETF
for. Those new additional documents include the latest LTANS DSSC
(draft-ietf-ltans-dssc-03) document and to some extent Donald Eastlakes XML
Signature RFC from 2002 (rfc3275)

Luckily our patent filing predates ANY work on the XML signing document
here in the IETF and for that matter in the W3C as well meaning lots of good
things regarding that patent and its infringers.

---
Personal Disclaimers Apply

TS Glassey

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:35:38 -0400

On 8/12/08 12:02 PM, TS Glassey allegedly wrote:
> As to the IPR Page - it does not

How can a description of how to use a technology infringe on a patent?
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From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:56:22 -0700

> How can a description of how to use a technology infringe on a patent?

It can't. :-)

But neither does IETF have any responsibility to parse and evaluate any of
the frivolous claims made in IPR disclosures. Responding to loose IPR claims
in public here only gives them undeserved credence. People and companies
will file what IPR disclosures they will; other people will evaluate their
importance when it becomes important to do so.

/Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Scott Brim
> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:36 AM
> To: TS Glassey
> Cc: Contreras, Jorge; [email-masked]; Carl Wallace; [email-masked]; IETF
> Discussion
> Subject: Re: Failing of IPR Filing Page when makling updates in re LTANS
> andother filings.
>

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:16:48 -0400 (EDT)

> > How can a description of how to use a technology infringe on a patent?

This isn't an entirely accurate and I'm always worried about inaccurate
assertions from a lawyer. I think that one must be completely forthright
about the possibilities.  While I agree with Atty Rosen's position and I
hope it will prevail, I have run into lawyers who assert that source
code distribution does infringe a patent.  There is no case law that I
know of to back that up on patents and source code, but recent copyright
cases have taken a very broad view of what constitutes copyright
infringement, and this might signal a broader view on what constitutes
patent infringement.

The IETF must consider indirect infringement, where one merely
encourages others to infringe, and contributory infringement, where the
only use of a non-infringing device or method is to infringe a patent.  
I think the correct answer here is "An IETF could possibly infringe on a
patent".

> importance when it becomes important to do so.

I don't know what a "loose IPR claim" is.  However, it seems incumbent
on the WG chairs and the IESG to evaluate the IPR claims made IPR
disclosures to the same extent as anyone else. The WG Chairs and the
IESG have a duty of due diligence to ensure that IETF documents don't
indirectly infringe on patents nor engage in contributory infringement.

		--Dean

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---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:51:52 +0200

You can't change your earlier public statement; that would be tampering 
with the historical record.

You can, however, file a new statement that updates the old one, as you 
have already done by filing #954, listed as an update of #201, and #955, 
#956, #957, #958, #959, #960, #961, #962 and #963, all listed as updates 
of #954.

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:53:09 +0200

Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> You can't change your earlier public statement; that would be
> tampering with the historical record.

The IETF appears to permit patent disclosures to be removed at the
request of submitters.  Search for 'remove' on the list if disclosures.
Is this intentional?  Is there anything in our procedures that explains
why this is a useful thing?  Does our procedures even permit removals?

It can be useful to review earlier patent disclosures from a company,
since they often contains text that is revised in later versions.
Seeing how text evolves often gives some understanding of the reasons
for the change.

/Simon

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:10:17 +0200

> Seeing how text evolves often gives some understanding of the reasons
When we discussed the procedures (Barbara and I basically invented the 
details between us), we thought that the normal case should be "record 
is public forever").

However, if people were filing disclosures that would not be useful 
(slanderous statements, duplicate-by-accident filings, stuff that turns 
out to be false and which the submitter wants redacted), we thought that 
having the discretionary ability to remove disclosures was a Good Thing.

I don't know how practice has evolved since I left the chair position.

               Harald

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:48:18 +0200

Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> (slanderous statements, duplicate-by-accident filings, stuff that
> turns out to be false and which the submitter wants redacted), we
> thought that having the discretionary ability to remove disclosures
> was a Good Thing.
>

It would be useful if those responsible for the current practice would
comment on what the process is to remove patent disclosures, and what
the grounds for removing disclosures should be.  It seems like some
companies can tamper with the historical record but others can't.

The number of patent disclosures that have been removed from the IETF
patent disclosure page are, at least, per year:

2008: 1
2007: 2
2006: 4
2005: 0
2004: 2
2003: 2

This is based on searching for 'remove' on the patent disclosure page.
I haven't checked whether the ID # numbering have any holes in them.

At least one of the removed patent licenses promises to make available
patent licenses on fair, reasonable, reciprocal and non-discriminatory
terms.  It seems unfortunate that IETF allows organizations to file such
claims and permits them be removed later, presumably when the
organization change their minds.

/Simon

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:59:13 +0200

> organization change their minds.
Agreed in principle.

On the other hand (trying to play devil's advocate), if the promise was 
made by someone in the organization that did not have authority to 
commit the organization to that statement, I could see why the 
responsible persons for that organization would want the original 
statement made invisible, so as to not have to eternally go around and 
explain the situation.....

               Harald

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:21:32 +0200

Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> On the other hand (trying to play devil's advocate), if the promise
> was made by someone in the organization that did not have authority to

What if the request to remove the disclosure was filed by someone who
isn't authorized to do it?

If the IETF removes patent disclosures, I believe the IETF will find
itself in the position of evaluating the _correctness_ of patent related
claims.  This seems like the wrong approach.

One way to mitigate your problem without getting into evaluating
correctness or removing disclosures would be to collect all patent
disclosures updates on the same page as the original patent disclosure,
and sort the entries in reverse calendar order.  Then anyone can add
note that a disclosure below was filed without authority.  That
disclosure can be evaluated for correctness the same way that other
disclosures can be evaluated.  Removing disclosures makes it impossible
for IETF participants to evaluate the contents for themselves.

/Simon

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:30:25 -0700

At 04:59 13-08-2008, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>was made by someone in the organization that did not have authority 
>to commit the organization to that statement, I could see why the 
>statement made invisible, so as to not have to eternally go around 
>and explain the situation.....

If the "IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any 
intellectual property rights or other rights that might be claimed to 
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in 
any IETF documents or the extent to which any license under such 
rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it 
has made any independent effort to identify any such rights", then 
why should it try to assess whether someone in the organization has 
the authority to commit the organization to that?

Section 7 of RFC 3979 covers individuals who are not permitted by 
their employers or by other factors to make a disclosure.

There is already a note about marking IPR disclosures as 
"non-compliant" if they do not comply with the formal 
requirements.  This could be extended to explain the situation where 
the person was not authorized to make the original statement.

>for IETF participants to evaluate the contents for themselves.

If anyone can add a note afterwards, it may lead to "abuse".  Keeping 
a historical record is useful for evaluation.  Allowing removal of 
disclosures is not a good idea.  That doesn't mean that there should 
be a hard rule which forbids it.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:48:07 -0400 (EDT)

> How can a description of how to use a technology infringe on a patent?

A standard isn't merely a description, as in a magazine article, but
also represents an industry agreement on the definition of a product. A
draft or WG could encourage persons to violate a patent, which is
indirect infringement.  A draft or WG could define a product that is a
contributory infringement on a patent.  The working group must take care
not to do these things.

		--Dean

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:10:33 -0400

--On Wednesday, August 13, 2008 2:21 PM +0200 Simon Josefsson 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> If the IETF removes patent disclosures, I believe the IETF
> will find itself in the position of evaluating the
> _correctness_ of patent related claims.  This seems like the
> wrong approach.

Or the authority to request that something be removed.  That 
seems like equally bad news.

> One way to mitigate your problem without getting into
> evaluating correctness or removing disclosures would be to
> collect all patent disclosures updates on the same page as the
> original patent disclosure, and sort the entries in reverse
> calendar order.  Then anyone can add note that a disclosure
> below was filed without authority.  That disclosure can be
> evaluated for correctness the same way that other disclosures
> can be evaluated.  Removing disclosures makes it impossible

Exactly

It seems to me that any other course of action leads us into rat 
holes.

I note, fwiw, that a company statement that said "the person who 
made that earlier statement had no authority to do so and we 
have fired him for making the claim" would (i) be very 
persuasive in the right way, (ii) establish the authority of the 
person making the latter statement, (iii) provide the foundation 
for libel action by the original filer against the person or 
company making the statement if it were not true, since the 
claim that someone had been fired on that basis would clearly be 
harmful to his or her reputation.

Clearly, the IETF would not be party to any of that -- we just 
post statements -- nor would that be the only sort of corrective 
statement that could be made.  But it would be effective.

    john

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:12:34 +1200

On 2008-08-14 05:10, John C Klensin wrote:
> Or the authority to request that something be removed.  That seems like
> equally bad news.
> 
> It seems to me that any other course of action leads us into rat holes.
> 
> I note, fwiw, that a company statement that said "the person who made
> that earlier statement had no authority to do so and we have fired him
> for making the claim" would (i) be very persuasive in the right way,
> (ii) establish the authority of the person making the latter statement,
> (iii) provide the foundation for libel action by the original filer
> against the person or company making the statement if it were not true,
> since the claim that someone had been fired on that basis would clearly
> be harmful to his or her reputation.
> 
> Clearly, the IETF would not be party to any of that -- we just post
> statements -- nor would that be the only sort of corrective statement
> that could be made.  But it would be effective.
> 

I wasn't even aware, during my tenure as chair, that the 'remove' button
existed. The only removals I recall, which may or may not be in the
numbers Simon quoted, were completely bogus and nonsensical disclosures
clearly filed by someone who was just fiddling around on the Web.

I agree that if any real disclosures are "removed" there should be a
complete public record. In fact "removed" is the wrong status - it
should be "rescinded", and if the original disclosure said it was
perpetual, I think the IETF should refuse to rescind it *whatever*
assertions are made about authority. In any case, RFC 3979 makes no
provision for removal or rescission, so we could argue that they are
not allowed; only revision is mentioned by RFC 3979. A revision that
purports to cancel a previous perpetual promise would be an
interesting case for the courts, of course, but not something
for the IETF to take a position on.

I think all of this needs to be checked by counsel.

    Brian

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:23:15 -0400

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:48:07 -0400 (EDT)
Dean Anderson <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > > allow for updates of already filed IPR Statement's to include new
> > > IETF documents which violate the patent rights after the posting
> > > of the IPR Notice.
> > 
> also represents an industry agreement on the definition of a product.
> A draft or WG could encourage persons to violate a patent, which is
> contributory infringement on a patent.  The working group must take
> care not to do these things.
> 
The whole point of the IETF's IPR policy to make sure that people do
know of applicable patents.  

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:02:49 -0700

> know of applicable patents.  

An ipr disclosure might well indicate that the discloser was infringing 
on someone else's ipr... That's not something that can be undone by 
redacting the disclosure however assuming such a thing were possible.
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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:11:51 +0200

> clearly filed by someone who was just fiddling around on the Web.

Some of the disclosures that are now removed were certainly not bogus.
For example, the patent license given in #833 was important input to a
lengthy discussion relatively recently.

> I think all of this needs to be checked by counsel.

That would be useful.

/Simon

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:42:32 +0200

> lengthy discussion relatively recently.
definitely agree on that one "for the record".

OTOH, to give a counterexample, I don't think there's any value to the 
community to having both #941 and #942 on file - they're duplicates.

                Harald

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:25:42 +0200

> community to having both #941 and #942 on file - they're duplicates.

Removing one out of two duplicates doesn't remove any patent-disclosure
related information, so I don't think it is a good counter-example.

If removals should be permitted, the reasons for accepting a removal
request should be well established.  I can think of at least two reasons
that are valid:

* Exact duplicates
* Spam

Beyond this I'm less sure we can get away the liability concern.

False positives for spam could be a issue, so I'm not even sure the
second one is OK.

/Simon

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:59:23 -0400

> request should be well established.  I can think of at least two  

I would divide this a little differently

- there are removals that can be done automatically. Some of these  
would be
    - exact duplicates
    - spam (or any other postings) _that don't mention patent rights  
or IPR_
    - postings with offensive words

These do not bother me. (There should, however, be a list of these  
reasons in a BCP IMO.)

- then there are removals that require judgement, which make me very  
nervous.

Suppose that, as a result of a border dispute, someone from a  
neighboring country
posts a claim that all of Large Company X's IPR is now made available  
under the terms of GPL v3.
This might be done as part of a wider campaign of cyber warfare.

Removing this is making a judgement on the validity of IPR claims,  
which we claim we do not do. It would be
much better to reject such messages before they are ever posted.

One solution would be to require a TDMA like confirmation of the  
existence of posters (do they
exist, and are they with the company they claim to be speaking for)  
_before_ the posting is accepted.

So, I would suggest

- a published list of reasons for automatic rejection of a disclosure

- a requirement that a company confirm the validity of a disclosure  
before it is posted publicly.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:20:53 +0200

Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]> writes:

>    - spam (or any other postings) _that don't mention patent rights or
> IPR_

I'd move the last category in under the spam: just because a patent
license contains some unrelated word shouldn't mean it must be removed.
If a disclosure regarding some patent contains offensive words, I think
readers would prefer to deal with it.

> - then there are removals that require judgement, which make me very

Indeed.

> much better to reject such messages before they are ever posted.

Rejecting disclosures appears to be a judgement call too.

> - a published list of reasons for automatic rejection of a disclosure

+1.

> before it is posted publicly.

How?

Note also that there are third-party disclosures, which by their nature
aren't authorized by the patent-holding organization.

/Simon

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:04:37 -0400

>> before it is posted publicly.

In the US, I believe that every company must have a counsel of record.  
Verifying a disclosure with that counsel
should be sufficient. I think that there are similar provisions in  
other countries.

Our counsel could probably suggest forms here.

> aren't authorized by the patent-holding organization.

I think that the only non-automatic reason to remove those should be  
through a lawsuit. (I.e., that unless
it was a clear spam, abuse a duplicate, etc., outside parties should  
make that decision.)

A TDMA process might be good here too - i.e., an email sent to verify  
that a disclosure was indeed sent from the
poster, along the lines of what you have to do to sign up to an IETF  
list.

There should also be a formal way, similar to what is done on IETF  
lists, to deny someone posting privileges
in case they started to abuse this.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:05:22 -0400

> request should be well established.  I can think of at least two reasons

As soon as you have evaluated the claim, even for "exact duplication"
or "it's spam", haven't you done exactly what the pages claim not to
do (take a position on the validity of the claim)?  I know that sounds
silly, but it seems to me that any evaluation _at all_ is
automatically a contravention of what the pages say the IETF does.  If
the pages are just a list of claims, including bogus ones, then the
IETF has taken no position at all.  As soon as some of them have been
evaluated, we're at the top of a slippery slope, I think.

A

-- 
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http://www.commandprompt.com/
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From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:18:18 -0400

> thought that having the discretionary ability to remove disclosures  

I have to admit that I found the "removed" state a bit mysterious.   
The [email-masked] alias got a bug report: "this previously filed  
IPR statement is now a 404".  I investigated lightly and discovered  
that it was in the "removed" state, and decided that this was an error  
in the tool's handling of "removed".

Knowing that "removed" was really intended for spam makes the tool's  
handling of "removed" correct (pretend it doesn't exist), and the IPR  
statement being in the "removed" state incorrect.

(Another problem with "removed" is that there's no annotation as to  
why it's removed, or when, or by whom.  *sigh*)

   Bill

---

From: Scott Kitterman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 9:20:00 -0400

>should be sufficient. I think that there are similar provisions in  

I don't particularly care to get deeply drawn into this thread, but I do 
want to point out that business registration and incorporation in the U.S. 
are primarily a matter of state law.  There are more than 50 potential 
answers for just the U.S.

There is certainly no such requirement in the state or Maryland where my 
business is registered.  There is a requirement for a Resident Agent, but 
there is no requirement for a lawyer.

I suspect that any legally defensibly validation mechanism would quickly 
fall into a pit of complexity from which it is unlikely to emerge.

Scott K

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:29:30 +0200

> evaluated, we're at the top of a slippery slope, I think.

That's a safer position, yes, but I suspect it will be completely
unusable quickly because of spam.

I can't find anything about permitting anonymous patent disclosures to
the IETF, so I think it would be possible to require some human
interaction with the submitter, to verify his identity, before a
disclosure is posted.  Contacting a company's counsel when feasible
would also help.  I don't think this would violate the requirement not
to validate claims -- we are not validating the claims, but just
validating the person notifying the IETF.

This sounds somewhat complex though, so maybe it is overkill.

/Simon

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:48:38 -0700

>_before_ the posting is accepted.

The submission form could send out an email to the two email 
addresses and accept the submission if a confirmation is received 
from them.  That may reduce "spam" and some duplicate submissions.

>before it is posted publicly.

IPR disclosures are submitted by participants and contributors.  Does 
a company fall within these two categories?

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:24:11 -0700

Hi all,

Nokia is one of the companies which submitted a number of withdrawal
requests for previous disclosures.  In no case (that I'm aware of) our
intention has been to sneak out of a licensing commitment.  Instead, we
submitted withdrawal requests with the intention to keep the IETF patent
database a useful tool---to do our share of database cleanup, so to speak.

For example, we removed disclosures where
-the patent went away (e.g. an abandoned application with no intention to
re-file the case)
-the scope of protection changed in such a way that the previous disclosure
became irrelevant, or
-an I-D went away and, in our estimation, the protected technology has not
been picked up in any other IETF document we are aware of.  (If it were, we
would submit another disclosure for the same patent, but against a different
draft.  This has happened once in case of Nokia).

We believe that these actions have been of advantage to the transparency of
the IETF patent system, and transparency is important.  When writing
"transparency", I mean transparency to the technical IETF contributor, who
typically has neither interest, nor the qualification, to accurately
interpret the legalese of patent disclosures.  (All too often guys just
state "there's a patent on this draft", because they found something in the
tracker---and in some WG, in practice, that can kill a draft.)

We also think that in an organization like the IETF, where language and
practice suggests the disclosure of (unstable) patent applications against
(unstable) I-Ds, there is a need for a cleanup mechanism of some sort.  This
is in contrast to organizations where one needs to declare only once at
least one of the documents is reasonably stable.

I personally believe that the impact of a removal of a disclosure to a
licensing promise is rather negligible.  The paper-trail of a disclosure can
quite easily be reconstructed during litigation, if a need arises.  The
IETF's patent database should focus on the practicalities required for IETF
standardization only.

My suggestion would be to either continue the current practice, or implement
something along the following lines:
  -an "invisible" flag, under control of the discloser
  -an "expert" mode in the database, which provides the whole paper-trail,
and
  -a "standard" mode which lists only the most recent update of a disclosure
(or the information that the request has been flagged "invisible" by the
submitter)

Regards,
Stephan

---

From: "Eric Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:43:32 -0500

Simon has hit on a valid point that not many seem to have
been considering in this discussion: it is one thing to
evaluate validity of an IPR claim and quite another to 
evaluate validity of an IPR disclosure.

I think the reason for not taking a position relative to the
validity of the IPR is that this can easily become quite a
tangled mess.  To perform some reasonable evaluation of an
IPR disclosure - such as has been suggested in this thread -
can probably be done without conflict with international 
patent office decisions or potential damage to corporate or
personal "property."

Another point to consider is that a very-likely-to-be-valid
reason for removing an IPR disclosure is if an organization's 
legal representative(s) convince the IETF's legal beagles
that an IPR disclosure was made innappropriately - such as
anonymously, or by an explicitly unauthorized person (such
as a disgruntled ex-employee or a competitor).  There must
be a way to handle this situation.

Timeliness of the counter-assertion should be a factor, but
that's one to be decided by counsel.

I believe the IETF has some degree of responsibility to do
at least some reasonable amount of evaluation of an IPR
disclosure - whatever might be the policy regarding the
evaluation of IPR itself.

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Simon Josefsson
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:30 AM
> To: Andrew Sullivan
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
>

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:15:49 -0400

I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why allowing
some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes sense. Since quite
often IPR disclosures are made for a specific ID in a specific working
group, if that WG ultimately does not choose that technology (and the ID
expires), I am curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR
disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are), it would
not be applicable to any other ID submission or working group, and would
therefore have little use but to add to the growing list of disclosures
in the IETF IPR database.

I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on file,
apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced the IETF IPR
database is the right place to hold onto IPR disclosures simply for
historical purposes that only apply to technology that will never see
the light of day in an IETF standard, since the IETF doesn't see any
value in keeping the IDs that they applied to in the first place.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Behalf Of Stephan Wenger
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:24 AM
> To: IETF Discussion
> Nokia is one of the companies which submitted a number of 
> withdrawal requests for previous disclosures.  In no case 
> (that I'm aware of) our intention has been to sneak out of a 
> licensing commitment.  Instead, we submitted withdrawal 
> requests with the intention to keep the IETF patent database 
> a useful tool---to do our share of database cleanup, so to speak.
> 
> For example, we removed disclosures where -the patent went 
> away (e.g. an abandoned application with no intention to 
> re-file the case) -the scope of protection changed in such a 
> way that the previous disclosure became irrelevant, or -an 
> I-D went away and, in our estimation, the protected 
> technology has not been picked up in any other IETF document 
> we are aware of.  (If it were, we would submit another 
> disclosure for the same patent, but against a different 
> We believe that these actions have been of advantage to the 
> transparency of the IETF patent system, and transparency is 
> important.  When writing "transparency", I mean transparency 
> to the technical IETF contributor, who typically has neither 
> interest, nor the qualification, to accurately interpret the 
> legalese of patent disclosures.  (All too often guys just 
> state "there's a patent on this draft", because they found 
> something in the tracker---and in some WG, in practice, that 
> can kill a draft.)
> 
> We also think that in an organization like the IETF, where 
> language and practice suggests the disclosure of (unstable) 
> patent applications against
> (unstable) I-Ds, there is a need for a cleanup mechanism of 
> some sort.  This is in contrast to organizations where one 
> needs to declare only once at least one of the documents is 
> reasonably stable.
> 
> I personally believe that the impact of a removal of a 
> disclosure to a licensing promise is rather negligible.  The 
> paper-trail of a disclosure can quite easily be reconstructed 
> during litigation, if a need arises.  The IETF's patent 
> database should focus on the practicalities required for IETF 
> standardization only.
> 
> My suggestion would be to either continue the current 
> practice, or implement something along the following lines:
>   -an "expert" mode in the database, which provides the whole 
> paper-trail, and
>   -a "standard" mode which lists only the most recent update 
> of a disclosure (or the information that the request has been 
> flagged "invisible" by the
> submitter)
> 
> Regards,
> Stephan
> 
> 
> >>>> I wasn't even aware, during my tenure as chair, that the 
> 'remove' 
> >>>> button existed. The only removals I recall, which may or 
> may not be 
> >>>> in the numbers Simon quoted, were completely bogus and 
> nonsensical 
> >>>> disclosures clearly filed by someone who was just 
> fiddling around on the Web.
> >>>>     
> >>> 
> >>> For example, the patent license given in #833 was 
> important input to 
> >>> a lengthy discussion relatively recently.
> >> OTOH, to give a counterexample, I don't think there's any value to 
> >> the community to having both #941 and #942 on file - 
> they're duplicates.
> > 
> > Removing one out of two duplicates doesn't remove any 
> > patent-disclosure related information, so I don't think it 
> is a good counter-example.
> > 
> > request should be well established.  I can think of at least two 
> > reasons that are valid:
> > 
> > * Exact duplicates
> > * Spam
> >

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:23:32 -0400

> be a way to handle this situation.

On the other hand, a disgruntled ex-employee, a particularly 
nasty competitor, or someone who went to law school on Mars 
might try to attack a legitimate posting by claiming that an 
earlier posting was invalid and asking that it be taken down. 
The opportunities for DoS attacks and generally nasty behavior 
are rife here and, since IETF doesn't have company members, 
making an assessment of who is legitimate or not when there are 
conflicting claims could become quite costly in IETF and/or 
attorney time or money.

Regardless of what the IETF does, there are provisions for 
getting almost anything removed from someone else's web site, 
especially for web sites hosted in the US and, I believe, 
Europe.  The company involved could find a judge to issue a 
court order requiring that material be removed or even, under 
DMCA, make a claim that the earlier posting violated copyright 
restrictions and issue a "takedown" demand.   Presumably the 
IETF would have to comply with court orders and would comply 
with a DMCA notice that appeared legitimate.  And both of those, 
especially the first, give us good protection from bogus 
requests (or, worse, a flood of such requests) without causing 
us unreasonable vunerability to nonsense.

    john

---

From: "Eric Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:30:20 -0500

John,

	What you said is all true, but obviously it has nothing
to do with what you responded to.  I said (in effect) that - 
if one set of lawyers contact another set of lawyers, we may 
have to take some action and we should have the mechanisms in 
place to allow that.

	What that might have to do with someone posting a counter
claim in an E-mail message is beyond me...

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> From: John C Klensin [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:24 AM
> To: Eric Gray; Simon Josefsson; Andrew Sullivan
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
> Importance: High
> 
> 
>

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:32:56 -0400

> value in keeping the IDs that they applied to in the first place.

The historical record is enough justification imho.  I would like to see 
legitimate disclosures kept, but marked (as RFCs are).  The first reason 
is a reluctance to throw anything away when we simply don't know whether 
it might be useful or not in the future.  Another reason is that it 
provides a history of past behavior by the claimant, which might be 
useful in WG decisions about future claims.
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:33:52 -0400

--On Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:15 AM -0400 Powers 
Chuck-RXCP20 <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why
> allowing some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes
> sense. Since quite often IPR disclosures are made for a
> specific ID in a specific working group, if that WG ultimately
> does not choose that technology (and the ID expires), I am
> curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR
> disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are),
> it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or
> working group, and would therefore have little use but to add
> to the growing list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database.
>
> I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on
> file, apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced
> the IETF IPR database is the right place to hold onto IPR
> disclosures simply for historical purposes that only apply to
> technology that will never see the light of day in an IETF
> standard, since the IETF doesn't see any value in keeping the
> IDs that they applied to in the first place.

Chuck,

As a long-term advocate of taking the provisions that I-Ds 
expire after six months --at least to the extent of having _all_ 
rights in them revert to the author(s)-- I think what you are 
saying above is profoundly sensible.

However, the IPR WG, in its wisdom, has concluded, in some 
phrasing that was changed fairly late in the game, that the IETF 
Trust should get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of 
subsequent uses of them and their content, with no time limit. 
That phrasing passed through IETF Last Call and IESG signoff and 
is the context in which the Trust is now writing rules.   It 
seems to me that, if the IETF (through the Trust) is going to be 
in a position to grant rights to use material in I-Ds forever, 
and if rights to use code in I-Ds (even for the first time) 
don't expire after six months or some other closed period, then, 
logically, we are obligated to keep the IPR disclosures forever.

I suppose that, if I were a paranoid lawyer (and IANAL, even if 
I'm paranoid about these sorts of things) and giving advice to a 
participant in the IETF, I'd recommend that an IPR disclosure be 
filed on every single I-D, indicating that any licenses I might 
grant were good for only six months after the posting of the 
last I-D in the relevant series unless it were approved for RFC 
publication.  What that would do to the system we seem to be 
making for ourselves would be interesting, at least.

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:00:02 -0400

> have to take some action and we should have the mechanisms in

We don't want to encourage anyone who decides that an IPR claim 
or rights/licensing summary is inappropriate and should be taken 
down to go looking for an IETF lawyer, do we?   The denial of 
service --or the accumulation of costs (in some form) to the 
IETF -- occurs the moment that call or letter is received.  I 
don't think we want to design mechanisms that make that easy for 
the person requesting the removal.  The "wait for a court order 
or equivalent" suggestion was an attempt to raise the bar and 
make sure that the entity requesting the removal was both real 
and very serious (just finding someone claiming to be a lawyer 
to make a call does not require either).

And that was my point, which seems exactly in line with your 
comment.

     john

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:02:25 -0400

John,

   Good point (and I agree with your concerns about letting the IETF
Trust have perpetual rights to sublicense something that has expired, as
far as the IETF standards process is concerned). However, unless I
missed something, the IPR disclosures themselves would not be relevant
to any other body to which the IETF Trust granted copyrights to, but
only to the work done in the IETF. At least, this would most likely be
the case for any IPR disclosure that was drafted by a competent
attorney. Granting the IETF Trust the right to pass on copyrights to a
contribution is not the same as making an IPR declaration that passes on
to anyone, anywhere for any use of the patented technology in the
contribution.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:34 AM
> To: Powers Chuck-RXCP20; Stephan Wenger; IETF Discussion
> allowing 
> > group, if that WG ultimately does not choose that 
> technology (and the 
> > ID expires), I am curious as to what the value would be of keeping 
> > that IPR disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as 
> many are), 
> > it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or working 
> > group, and would therefore have little use but to add to 
> the growing 
> > list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database.
> >
> expire after six months --at least to the extent of having 
> _all_ rights in them revert to the author(s)-- I think what 
> you are saying above is profoundly sensible.
> 
> phrasing that was changed fairly late in the game, that the 
> IETF Trust should get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all 
> sorts of subsequent uses of them and their content, with no 
> time limit. 
> seems to me that, if the IETF (through the Trust) is going to 
> be in a position to grant rights to use material in I-Ds 
> forever, and if rights to use code in I-Ds (even for the 
> first time) don't expire after six months or some other 
> closed period, then, logically, we are obligated to keep the 
> IPR disclosures forever.
> 
> I suppose that, if I were a paranoid lawyer (and IANAL, even 
> if I'm paranoid about these sorts of things) and giving 
> advice to a participant in the IETF, I'd recommend that an 
> IPR disclosure be filed on every single I-D, indicating that 
> any licenses I might grant were good for only six months 
> after the posting of the last I-D in the relevant series 
> unless it were approved for RFC publication.  What that would 
> do to the system we seem to be making for ourselves would be 
> interesting, at least.
> 
>     john
> 
>

---

From: "Eric Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:01:56 -0500

Yes.

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:00 PM

---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:04:08 -0700

Hi John,

please note that the vast majority of IETF IPR disclosures promise patent
licenses only on technologies described in an I-D in the event that the I-D
becomes an IETF "standard".  This avoids the problems you mentioned nicely,
I think, at the expense of some uncertainty when people implement I-Ds that
do not become standards, and some uncertainly during the prototyping/early
deployment phase---which, so far, most if us can comfortably live with.

In short: The licensing promise kicks in only once an I-D becomes an "IETF
standard" (interpreted by most of us as an RFC is published).  In any other
stage there is no licensing promise.  Some statements are more carefully
worded about the subtleties of "standard" then others... but most seem to
have the same intention.

Enough (hardly qualified) people mix up copyright related issued with patent
license promises already---I don't think I need to mention names.  Let's not
fall into this trap.

Regards,
Stephan

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:02:52 +1200

On 2008-08-14 19:25, Simon Josefsson wrote:
...
> False positives for spam could be a issue, so I'm not even sure the

Well, here's a quote from #644, which I had removed:

"is ipv6 the ultimate version of the internet protocol now?
is possible send segments of 256 bytes in the ipv6 protocol?
support microsoft corporation the ipv6 protocol in the microsofts private
networks?
the code of ipv6 is a"

It wasn't spam; it was just drivel. There were others of the same nature,
#555, #577, #578 and possibly others; I don't have full records. But I assure
you that since these removals were all manual, there were no false
positives. I don't think that's a real risk.

    Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:12:29 +1200

On 2008-08-15 01:48, SM wrote:
> The submission form could send out an email to the two email addresses
> and accept the submission if a confirmation is received from them.  That
> may reduce "spam" and some duplicate submissions.
> 
> IPR disclosures are submitted by participants and contributors.  Does a
> company fall within these two categories?

Exactly. We've always allowed contributors to be represented by their
employers in IPR disclosures, but the onus is on the contributor. In any
case, *any* form of vetting of the sender of a disclosure seems to me
to be much further down the slippery slope of making a judgment than
either duplicate-detection or drivel-filtering. I really do not think
we should go there. If unauthorised license promises are made, we want
to be well out of the legal firing line.

On 2008-08-15 02:24, Stephan Wenger wrote:
...
> database a useful tool---to do our share of database cleanup, so to speak.

The intention is fine but removing is IMHO completely the wrong answer -
the correct answer is to update the disclosure with a new one that
withdraws it. I can see that the removal of a very recent disclosure
that's found to be in error may be reasonable, but even that isn't
described in RFC 3979.

    Brian

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:16:17 -0400 (EDT)

> > explain the situation.....

Removal by the IETF seems to be agreement to release the promisor from
the agreement.  The IETF shouldn't do this since the agreement was a
condition on which the WG made its decision. 

In the case that the organization doesn't have authority to make the
promise, it shouldn't make false promises and is responsible for
whatever consequences befall it as a result. These consequences are not
the concern of the IETF.  All the IETF should do is allow the company to
update the disclosures to state that it can't honor the commitment it
made previously. This is consistent with 'record is history' view.

> isn't authorized to do it?

Good point.

> for IETF participants to evaluate the contents for themselves.

This is how I thought it worked now, perhaps with the exception of
sorting by date. I think they are sorted by number (or maybe this is
just the natural order), and higher numbers generally have later dates.

---

From: "Bound, Jim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:20:12 +0000

Have read all this thus far and complex problem/discussion and good to have here.  I know this is heresy to many vendors but I believe the IETF should not permit at some date in the future any part of a specification to have any IPR from any vendor that is accountable to patents or royalties.  In simpler terms anything we develop in the IETF is public domain in the legal context, and we do not use any vendor patents for any of our work.  Just remove the problem entirely. As specs are implemented IPR added value can be done by vendors and inventors to improve and customize their product or invention to attain larger ROI in the market competitively, but the base core IETF specs are patent, royalty, and IPR free to all worldwide regardless of geography or governmental boundaries.

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and does not reflect the view of the company I work for at all.

/jim

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:05:17 -0400

--On Friday, August 15, 2008 10:02 AM +1200 Brian E Carpenter 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> If removals should be permitted, the reasons for accepting a
>> removal request should be well established.  I can think of
>> at least two reasons that are valid:
>>
>> * Exact duplicates
>> * Spam
>>
>> False positives for spam could be a issue, so I'm not even
>> sure the second one is OK.
>
> support microsoft corporation the ipv6 protocol in the
> microsofts private networks?
> the code of ipv6 is a"
>
># 555, #577, #578 and possibly others; I don't have full
># records. But I assure
> you that since these removals were all manual, there were no
> false positives. I don't think that's a real risk.

Brian,

I believe that the right way to handle these cases involves 
_not_ having IPR submissions go directly to the database but 
instead be the subject of a nominal manual review (or, if you 
prefer "moderated postings").  If something passes that review 
--whose only criterion should be that it has the general form, 
structure, and content of an IPR disclosure (which the above 
clearly does not), then it goes into the database.  If not, it 
goes into a quarantine area with senders given, say, 30 days to 
protest that classification.

Those who appear to be mounting denial of service attacks on 
that process could be dealt with just as we deal with those who 
mount such attacks on IETF mailing lists.

Being a little proactive in that way prevents nonsense from 
getting into the database in the first place and saves us 
discussions about the appropriate boundaries for removing 
something already posted.  If that sort of quick review is too 
expensive, then I think we are stuck with comments that some 
postings are nonsense because there is a slippery slope that 
leads toward evaluating the content of such postings; I think it 
unwise for the IETF to be anywhere near that slope. If I 
correctly understand some of your recent postings, we are fairly 
close to agreement on that subject, even if you might be willing 
to wander a bit closer to the edge than I am.

    john

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:25:52 -0400

On Aug 15, 2008, at 10:05 AM, John C Klensin wrote:

>
>
> --On Friday, August 15, 2008 10:02 AM +1200 Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked] 
> > wrote:
>
> I believe that the right way to handle these cases involves _not_  
> having IPR submissions go directly to the database but instead be  
> the subject of a nominal manual review (or, if you prefer "moderated  
> postings").  If something passes that review --whose only criterion  
> should be that it has the general form, structure, and content of an  
> IPR disclosure (which the above clearly does not), then it goes into  
> the database.  If not, it goes into a quarantine area with senders  
> given, say, 30 days to protest that classification.
>
> Those who appear to be mounting denial of service attacks on that  
> process could be dealt with just as we deal with those who mount  
> such attacks on IETF mailing lists.
>
> Being a little proactive in that way prevents nonsense from getting  
> into the database in the first place and saves us discussions about  
> the appropriate boundaries for removing something already posted.   
> If that sort of quick review is too expensive, then I think we are  
> stuck with comments that some postings are nonsense because there is  
> a slippery slope that leads toward evaluating the content of such  
> postings; I think it unwise for the IETF to be anywhere near that  
> slope. If I correctly understand some of your recent postings, we  
> are fairly close to agreement on that subject, even if you might be  
> willing to wander a bit closer to the edge than I am.

I agree with John here. It seems to me that there is a big difference  
in bouncing postings and removing them, especially if the bouncing is  
for clearly articulated, neutral, reasons (not having "the general  
form, structure, and content of an IPR disclosure"), which could be  
rectified if the poster really was serious about making a disclosure.  
We bounce stuff at the IETF (spam sent to mailing lists, even meeting  
registrations) literally every day  for the same reason.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:31:46 +0200

By submitting a draft to the IETF, you (normally) give the IETF rights
to build technology based on it.  If an patent disclosure is related to
a draft someone submits, and the draft expires and the disclosure is
removed, someone else can pick up the draft and submit a new version.
Not being able to read the original patent disclosure in this situation
would be bad.

Further, there is nothing in the IETF policies that permit removing
patent disclosures today, so if you want to change the policy here I
believe you will need to get consensus to revise the IETF patent
policies.

/Simon

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:45:11 -0400

I don't believe there is anything in the IETF policies that forbids the
removal of an IPR declaration, either, so no IPR Policy change would in
fact be required. IMO, that argument is a non-starter.

As for someone else 'picking up' an ID that someone else submitted, the
only situation I could see that even being relevant too would be having
the original sumbitter lose interest, but someone else in the same
working group picking up the draft and running with it. Perhaps, this
might be a good reason to maintain the IPR disclosures until the working
group is closed down, or some other clear sign that the contribution
made into that working group will never go anywhere. As from someone
taking an ID contributed into a working group and trying to push it into
something else, again, a good attorney will ensure that the IPR
disclosure would not be valid for that case. Maybe that is the filter -
for IPR disclosures specific to a working group, if the technology
didn't make it into the standard that working group was drafting, and
the work on that standard is complete, then removal would be
appropriate.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 9:32 AM
> To: Powers Chuck-RXCP20
> Cc: Stephan Wenger; IETF Discussion
> By submitting a draft to the IETF, you (normally) give the 
> IETF rights to build technology based on it.  If an patent 
> disclosure is related to a draft someone submits, and the 
> draft expires and the disclosure is removed, someone else can 
> pick up the draft and submit a new version.
> Not being able to read the original patent disclosure in this 
> situation would be bad.
> 
> Further, there is nothing in the IETF policies that permit 
> removing patent disclosures today, so if you want to change 
> the policy here I believe you will need to get consensus to 
> revise the IETF patent policies.
> 
> /Simon
> 
> >> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> On Behalf 
> >> Of Stephan Wenger
> withdrawal 
> >> requests for previous disclosures.  In no case (that I'm aware of) 
> >> our intention has been to sneak out of a licensing commitment.  
> >> Instead, we submitted withdrawal requests with the 
> intention to keep 
> >> the IETF patent database a useful tool---to do our share 
> of database 
> >> cleanup, so to speak.
> >> 
> away (e.g. 
> >> an abandoned application with no intention to re-file the 
> case) -the 
> >> scope of protection changed in such a way that the previous 
> >> disclosure became irrelevant, or -an I-D went away and, in our 
> >> estimation, the protected technology has not been picked up in any 
> >> other IETF document we are aware of.  (If it were, we would submit 
> >> another disclosure for the same patent, but against a different 
> >> important.  When writing "transparency", I mean 
> transparency to the 
> >> technical IETF contributor, who typically has neither 
> interest, nor 
> >> the qualification, to accurately interpret the legalese of patent 
> >> disclosures.  (All too often guys just state "there's a patent on 
> >> this draft", because they found something in the tracker---and in 
> >> some WG, in practice, that can kill a draft.)
> >> 
> language 
> >> and practice suggests the disclosure of (unstable) patent 
> >> applications against
> >> (unstable) I-Ds, there is a need for a cleanup mechanism of some 
> >> sort.  This is in contrast to organizations where one needs to 
> >> declare only once at least one of the documents is 
> reasonably stable.
> >> 
> disclosure to 
> >> a licensing promise is rather negligible.  The paper-trail of a 
> >> disclosure can quite easily be reconstructed during 
> litigation, if a 
> >> need arises.  The IETF's patent database should focus on the 
> >> practicalities required for IETF standardization only.
> >> 
> >> My suggestion would be to either continue the current practice, or 
> >> implement something along the following lines:
> >>   -a "standard" mode which lists only the most recent update of a 
> >> disclosure (or the information that the request has been flagged 
> >> "invisible" by the
> >> submitter)
> >> 
> >> Regards,
> >> Stephan
> >> 
> >>

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:48:19 +0200

John C Klensin <[email-masked]> writes:

> However, the IPR WG, in its wisdom, has concluded, in some phrasing
> that was changed fairly late in the game, that the IETF Trust should
> get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of subsequent uses of
> them and their content, with no time limit.

You have claimed this before, but I don't understand it.  RFC 2026 says
that the IETF receives a fairly broad license to do anything it wants
with all contributions, see section 10.3.1:

   l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to
      copyright.  However, to the extent that the submission is or may
      be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
      represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
      the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
      royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the
      IETF under any copyrights in the contribution.  This license
      includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
      contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
      based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
      license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
      license of the original contribution.

As far as I can tell, this quote says the opposite of what you claim,
and I'd like to understand where I fail to understand.

I assume you don't think of RFC 2026 as fairly recent.

Are you disputing that RFC 2026 license gives the IETF rights to
continue working on contributions?

Are you disputing that the term "contribution" covers I-D's?

Are you saying that RFC 2026 contains some other text that imply that
after the 6 months timer as timed out, the license above doesn't hold?

Is your objection that the Trust is now authorized to grant uses outside
of the IETF process?

> That phrasing passed through IETF Last Call and IESG signoff and is
> the context in which the Trust is now writing rules.  It seems to me
> that, if the IETF (through the Trust) is going to be in a position to
> grant rights to use material in I-Ds forever, and if rights to use
> code in I-Ds (even for the first time) don't expire after six months
> or some other closed period, then, logically, we are obligated to keep
> the IPR disclosures forever.

Agreed.

/Simon

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:51:26 +0200

> worded about the subtleties of "standard" then others... but most seem to

The problem is that there is no time limit on when the I-D can become an
IETF standard.  Someone can pick up a 5 year old I-D and do the work
involved in getting it standardized; I believe our process allows for
that.  If patent disclosures are removed during that time, IETF
participants are denied the possibility to learn about patent
disclosures for the technology.  I don't believe that is consistent with
the IETF policy.

/Simon

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:57:40 +0200

John C Klensin <[email-masked]> writes:

> having IPR submissions go directly to the database but instead be the
> subject of a nominal manual review (or, if you prefer "moderated
> process could be dealt with just as we deal with those who mount such
> attacks on IETF mailing lists.

I agree with John here: our process to deal with drivel on IETF mailing
lists are appropriate to handle drivel in the IETF patent disclosure
list as well.

I'd like to suggest that the IETF patent disclosure mechanism be changed
to postings to a mailing list.  All patent disclosures can be sent to
it, archived as any other IETF work.  The postings would then also be
subject to the dispute handling process that the IETF already have put
significant amount of work into.  It would also be subject to the
anti-spam mechanism already in place.

/Simon

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:41:05 -0500

I'm trying to summarize in a way that might someday be translated into IETF 
process, and not Yet Another Great Discussion On [email-masked] That Doesn't 
Result in Change...

I agree with John's suggestion that IPR disclosures be handled as "moderated 
postings", and I assume that we could actually come up with a short 
canonical list of things to look for. This would help with cruft on the 
front end.

We might also want to distinguish between IPR disclosures for CURRENT I-Ds 
and the complete (non-cruft) list of IPR disclosures on any I-Ds that have 
ever been submitted. This would help with cruft on the back end, and make it 
easier for working groups to consider IPR disclosures relevant to 
technologies included in their drafts, which I understand to be the primary 
reason why we ask for disclosures in the first place.

It became obvious to the community over a period of years that the IETF did 
have a more-or-less-complete repository of all I-Ds, but most people didn't 
have access to it - that's not what I'm talking about, of course.

Thanks,

Spencer

> Brian,
>
> I believe that the right way to handle these cases involves _not_ having 
> IPR submissions go directly to the database but instead be the subject of 
> a nominal manual review (or, if you prefer "moderated postings").  If 
> something passes that review --whose only criterion should be that it has 
> the general form, structure, and content of an IPR disclosure (which the 
> above clearly does not), then it goes into the database.  If not, it goes 
> into a quarantine area with senders given, say, 30 days to protest that 
> classification.
>
> Those who appear to be mounting denial of service attacks on that process 
> could be dealt with just as we deal with those who mount such attacks on 
> IETF mailing lists.
>
> Being a little proactive in that way prevents nonsense from getting into 
> the database in the first place and saves us discussions about the 
> appropriate boundaries for removing something already posted.  If that 
> sort of quick review is too expensive, then I think we are stuck with 
> comments that some postings are nonsense because there is a slippery slope 
> that leads toward evaluating the content of such postings; I think it 
> unwise for the IETF to be anywhere near that slope. If I correctly 
> understand some of your recent postings, we are fairly close to agreement 
> on that subject, even if you might be willing to wander a bit closer to 
> the edge than I am.
>
>    john

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:39:31 -0700

At 7:31 AM -0700 8/15/08, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>to build technology based on it. 

While I am sure that you don't mean to confuse this issue,
"to build technology based on it" has two possible meanings
here. "To build on this work in order to develop standards
in the area" is one, and someone submitting a draft
to the IETF normally does give the IETF those rights.

Other processes determine what rights are granted
to whom to build the (software|hardware) based on those standards.
One of those processes might be patent licensing or
acceptance  of a quid pro quo.  (such as accepting that the use
of a technology means you will not sue the holder of that
technology for patent infringement relevant to your own
rights--see Cisco's common  license).  Submitting a
draft does not give those rights to the IETF (and
the requirement that you file IPR claims  and licenses
relevant to it is a statement that filing the draft does
not grant those rights).

Again, I'm sure you know this in your bones, but since
this list is read by a variety of people who pick up conversations
at various places, I believe this needs to be said.
		regards,
			Ted Hardie

>If an patent disclosure is related to

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:48:01 -0700

>that.

They pretty much have to write a new I-D though, and, unless it the
same authors, the name and details will change (though I'm
sure a -5 years after the -4 has happened).  In this latter case,
I believe a new statement by those willing to license it would be
required, so it could be attached to the new draft.  Otherwise,
someone other than the rights holder is making the determination
that the technology in draft-oldauthor-foo-04 and draft-newauthor-foo-00
is the same.  I think our process pretty much puts out of that business.
I confess to some queasiness already that rights statements in
-0(n) remain in force for -0(n+1) when the technology may
change between the two, but I think the current system
(leaving it up to the rights holder when or if to re-file) is
a decent balance.  Requiring one on each new version would
make us nuts.

			regards,
				Ted

> If patent disclosures are removed during that time, IETF

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:48:48 -0400

Spencer,

Let me offer one small variation, extracted from comments I've 
made in an off-list discussion.  I promised myself I wasn't 
going to write this note, but circumstances change...

--On Friday, August 15, 2008 10:41 AM -0500 Spencer Dawkins 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I'm trying to summarize in a way that might someday be
> translated into IETF process, and not Yet Another Great
> Discussion On [email-masked] That Doesn't Result in Change...

> I agree with John's suggestion that IPR disclosures be handled
> as "moderated postings", and I assume that we could actually
> come up with a short canonical list of things to look for.
> This would help with cruft on the front end.

> We might also want to distinguish between IPR disclosures for
> CURRENT I-Ds and the complete (non-cruft) list of IPR
> disclosures on any I-Ds that have ever been submitted. This
> would help with cruft on the back end, and make it easier for
> working groups to consider IPR disclosures relevant to
> technologies included in their drafts, which I understand to
> be the primary reason why we ask for disclosures in the first
> place.

Here is where I've disagreed with the IPR WG (or at least the 
interpretation of consensus and documents from that WG), and 
this is exactly one of the reasons.

Whether we make the documents readily available or somehow try 
to un-publish them or otherwise pretend that they don't exist, I 
think we would be much better off taking the "expire in six 
months" statement seriously wrt I-Ds and IPR.   I've been 
reminded that a large fraction of the serious IPR postings that 
contain releases, licence grants, or license guarantees do so on 
an "if the technology is standardized" or equivalent basis. 
Those statements are worthless wrt I-Ds; anyone implementing 
technology and shipping product from an I-D that might be 
covered by the disclosure is assuming all of the risks of having 
to withdraw a product and/or quickly negotiate a license under 
unfavorable conditions should the IETF decide to not standardize 
that particular technology.

That situation exists regardless of what the IETF does.  Even 
insisting on complete and open implementation rights (not even 
RAND), as has periodically been proposed, wouldn't help if 
licenses are granted only for implementation, deployment, and 
use of standards.  So there is no point wasting time discussing 
it, and it is not my intention to do so here.

But it seems to me that we can keep the IETF out of all sorts of 
messes by taking the position that, when an I-D reaches that 
six-month limit, any rights granted by the author other than for 
IETF use in developing standards revert to the author.  From a 
patent standpoint, that means that the old disclosures are the 
old disclosures, even if they state licensing terms that are 
guaranteed to never be meaningful, but we don't accept new 
disclosures because anyone doing an implementation against an 
expired I-D should be clearly on their own as far as the IETF is 
concerned.

Even from a copyright standpoint, if someone, for uses other 
than IETF standards development, pulls text or code out of an 
expired I-D that has not progressed into RFC publication, let 
the acknowledgments (if any) be to the authors, not the IETF 
(which effectively decided it wasn't interested in the document 
by letting it expire and may have made no contribution to it at 
all).  Anything that was done with IETF permission during the 
time the draft was active stays done and valid, of course.  But 
things done post-expiration, and disputes about whether or not 
something had expired when the text was taken and used, are 
between the authors and the entities doing the copying (and 
their respective lawyers, if appropriate).   It is, IMO, 
undesirable and inappropriate for the IETF [Trust] to become 
involved in any of those issues for expired drafts -- it isn't 
necessary for the standards process and it isn't necessary for 
anything else that is the IETF's business or problem.

Just my opinion, of course.
   john

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:15:43 -0700

It seems like there is a lot of concern about removals, and some 
concern about original publication of spam, drivel, and duplicate 
notices. Here is a proposal for a way forward:

1) Original submissions to the IPR repository are moderated, but only 
to prevent publication of spam and drivel. If the moderator (who 
should probably be a NomCom-appointed person such as the IETF chair 
or IAB chair) sees what appears to be a duplicate notice, that person 
can ask the poster if they really meant to publish the duplicate 
notice; if so, it gets published.

2) Once published, a notice is never removed. A notice can, however, 
later be amended. Amendments are attached to the published notice.

3) All amendments that the moderator considers to come from the 
original poster or from the likely owner of the IPR in the posting 
are accepted.

4) Other amendments are moderated. The moderator should (other than 
in cases of spam or drivel) either post a relevant amendment or 
suggest to the amendment's proposer that the proposer file a 
different IPR statement that cross-references this on.

5) In case of dispute about posting an amendment, the moderator 
should make his/her own amendment summarizing the dispute.

These are fairly easy to follow and give latitude to the moderator. 
Concerns about censorship or incompetence on the part of the 
moderator are dealt with fairly easily: the aggrieved party can send 
mail to the IETF mailing list.

Thoughts?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:22:45 -0400

--On Friday, August 15, 2008 4:48 PM +0200 Simon Josefsson 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> You have claimed this before, but I don't understand it.  RFC
> 2026 says that the IETF receives a fairly broad license to do
> anything it wants with all contributions, see section 10.3.1:

I believe that, subject to the "you can't really use this" 
disclaimers allowed by 2026, the IETF has the right to do just 
about anything it wants or needs to do with text in an I-D, 
active or expired, as long as doing that is part of the 
standards process.  I agree that 2026 is clear about that, as 
were precedents before it.   And, referring to one of your 
earlier notes, I think that includes pulling text out of an I-D 
that has been expired for years and years and incorporating it 
into a new I-D, publishing it as an RFC, etc.

I also believe it is absolutely necessary for the IETF to have 
those rights.   I did not intend my note to say anything else 
and hope I've been consistent about that over the years.

>...
> Is your objection that the Trust is now authorized to grant
> uses outside of the IETF process?

I believe that there is nothing in 2026 that allows the IETF, 
ISOC, or the trust to grant any rights, or any sort, to anyone 
to do anything with text in I-Ds (or other contributions) 
outside of use _by the IETF_ (i.e., as part of the standards 
process).  The ability of the Trust to grant such rights 
originates with assumptions about the Trust itself and, in 
detail, in the recent "inbound" and "outbound" rights documents. 
I believe that the approach taken in those documents wrt I-Ds, 
especially expired I-Ds, is wrong and that we will eventually 
regret it.  YMMD and I am clearly in the minority on that 
subject.

That said, because I believe the IETF has the absolute right to 
pick up prior I-D text at any point and reuse it, I believe that 
disclosure statements that were made while the I-D was active 
have to be retained for that long, i.e., to a good approximation 
of forever.   Ted's comments about how meaningful those earlier 
disclosure statements are and for how long are very much 
relevant to this, but I don't think change the retention period. 
And, even if my "no new disclosures for expired I-Ds" proposal 
were adopted, I think it would be reasonable to permit comments 
that provided explanations about licensing or release status or 
forward pointers to disclosures associated with more recent or 
superceding documents.

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:33:04 -0400

Paul,

FWIW, this works for me.

One quibble: I would suggest that moderation for spam, drivel, 
and duplicates ought to be a reasonable Secretariat (or IAD, or 
IAD-assigned) task.   If the IETF and IAB chair don't have 
better things to do with their time than to moderate this sort 
of posting, then I suggest a small committee be formed to start 
working on a list, perhaps to report back to the RFC Editor well 
before the end of March :-(.   In addition, having a volunteer 
make those decisions could easily lead to claims of conflict of 
interest and we don't want to go there.

    john

--On Friday, August 15, 2008 10:15 AM -0700 Paul Hoffman 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> It seems like there is a lot of concern about removals, and
> some concern about original publication of spam, drivel, and
> duplicate notices. Here is a proposal for a way forward:
>
> 1) Original submissions to the IPR repository are moderated,
> but only to prevent publication of spam and drivel. If the
> moderator (who should probably be a NomCom-appointed person
> such as the IETF chair or IAB chair) sees what appears to be a
>...

     john

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:37:24 -0400

In general, not a bad approach. However, does a valid amendment include
the statement "this IPR declaration is now null and void, since the
technology did not make it into the targeted standard"? This would
resolve the issue of having IPR declarations just hanging out there, for
technology that never made it into a standard.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Behalf Of Paul Hoffman
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 12:16 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> such as the IETF chair or IAB chair) sees what appears to be 
> a duplicate notice, that person can ask the poster if they 
> really meant to publish the duplicate notice; if so, it gets 
> published.
> 
> 2) Once published, a notice is never removed. A notice can, 
> however, later be amended. Amendments are attached to the 
> published notice.
> 
> 3) All amendments that the moderator considers to come from 
> the original poster or from the likely owner of the IPR in 
> the posting are accepted.
> 
> 4) Other amendments are moderated. The moderator should 
> (other than in cases of spam or drivel) either post a 
> relevant amendment or suggest to the amendment's proposer 
> that the proposer file a different IPR statement that 
> cross-references this on.
> 
> 5) In case of dispute about posting an amendment, the 
> moderator should make his/her own amendment summarizing the dispute.
> 
> moderator are dealt with fairly easily: the aggrieved party 
> can send mail to the IETF mailing list.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:41:43 -0700

At 1:33 PM -0400 8/15/08, John C Klensin wrote:
>FWIW, this works for me.
>
>One quibble: I would suggest that moderation for spam, drivel, and 
>duplicates ought to be a reasonable Secretariat (or IAD, or 
>IAD-assigned) task.

Heh. I put that provision in specifically because I thought *you* 
would object to the moderator not being able to be recalled by a 
NomCom. So much for my perceived ability to read your mind...

>If the IETF and IAB chair don't have better things to do with their 
>time than to moderate this sort of posting, then I suggest a small 
>committee be formed to start working on a list, perhaps to report 
>back to the RFC Editor well before the end of March :-(.   In 
>addition, having a volunteer make those decisions could easily lead 
>to claims of conflict of interest and we don't want to go there.

That works for me just as well as a NomCom appointee.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:44:37 -0400

I agree with John, and expect that if the IETF Trust will now be allowed
to take an expired ID, and do with it want it wants outside of the
standards process, the result will (appropriately) be to have more
finely tuned IPR declarations, which make it clear that the declaration
is targeted at the specific standard in question, and is not applicable
beyond that, inside or outside of the IETF standardization process. As
far as I can tell, there is, and should be, nothing that prohibits IPR
holders from making such refined declarations, and such declarations
will easily meet the requirements for being a valid IPR declaration to
the IETF. IMO this simply underscores the valid separation of patent
rights and copyright rights in the IETF process, that some still seem to
be confused over.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Behalf Of John C Klensin
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 12:23 PM
> To: Simon Josefsson
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: authorizing subsequent use of contributions
> 
> 
> 
> phrasing 
> >> get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of 
> subsequent uses 
> >> of them and their content, with no time limit.
> >
> > 2026 says that the IETF receives a fairly broad license to 
> do anything 
> > it wants with all contributions, see section 10.3.1:
> 
> disclaimers allowed by 2026, the IETF has the right to do 
> just about anything it wants or needs to do with text in an 
> I-D, active or expired, as long as doing that is part of the 
> earlier notes, I think that includes pulling text out of an 
> I-D that has been expired for years and years and 
> incorporating it into a new I-D, publishing it as an RFC, etc.
> 
> > Is your objection that the Trust is now authorized to grant  uses 
> >outside of the IETF process?
> 
> ISOC, or the trust to grant any rights, or any sort, to 
> anyone to do anything with text in I-Ds (or other 
> contributions) outside of use _by the IETF_ (i.e., as part of 
> the standards process).  The ability of the Trust to grant 
> such rights originates with assumptions about the Trust 
> itself and, in detail, in the recent "inbound" and "outbound" 
> rights documents. 
> I believe that the approach taken in those documents wrt 
> I-Ds, especially expired I-Ds, is wrong and that we will 
> eventually regret it.  YMMD and I am clearly in the minority 
> on that subject.
> 
> That said, because I believe the IETF has the absolute right 
> to pick up prior I-D text at any point and reuse it, I 
> believe that disclosure statements that were made while the 
> I-D was active have to be retained for that long, i.e., to a 
> good approximation 
> And, even if my "no new disclosures for expired I-Ds" 
> proposal were adopted, I think it would be reasonable to 
> permit comments that provided explanations about licensing or 
> release status or forward pointers to disclosures associated 
> with more recent or superceding documents.
> 
>     john
> 
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:23:41 -0700

>technology that never made it into a standard.

Sure. An amendment is an amendment. A following amendment that says 
"er, ignore that last amendment, the original IPR statement is still 
in force, and the guy who sent that has been moved to our rendering 
plant" is also valid.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:01:39 +0200

> at various places, I believe this needs to be said.

Right.  I should have said "... give IETF participants the right to
publish an updated IETF draft" instead.

Thanks,
/Simon

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:07:34 +0200

Your process seems fine to me, however, does it have any advantage
compared to having [email-masked] be a moderated mailing list, run
under the same rules as any other IETF mailing list?

We already have processes to deal with spam, moderation, DoS attacks,
and even appeal paths.  You can easily sign patent licenses with
OpenPGP/MIME or S/MIME in e-mail as well.  As far as I can tell, an IETF
mailing list would have the same properties as your proposal, or is
there any difference?

A mailing list sounds easier to manage to me, compared to inventing a
new process that effectively have the same properties.

/Simon

Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]> writes:

> should probably be a NomCom-appointed person such as the IETF chair or
> IAB chair) sees what appears to be a duplicate notice, that person can
> ask the poster if they really meant to publish the duplicate notice;
> if so, it gets published.
>
> original poster or from the likely owner of the IPR in the posting are
> accepted.
>
> 4) Other amendments are moderated. The moderator should (other than in
> cases of spam or drivel) either post a relevant amendment or suggest
> to the amendment's proposer that the proposer file a different IPR
> statement that cross-references this on.
>
> 5) In case of dispute about posting an amendment, the moderator should
> make his/her own amendment summarizing the dispute.
>
> These are fairly easy to follow and give latitude to the
> moderator. Concerns about censorship or incompetence on the part of
> the moderator are dealt with fairly easily: the aggrieved party can
> send mail to the IETF mailing list.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:12:23 +1200

On 2008-08-16 06:23, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> Sure. An amendment is an amendment. A following amendment that says "er,
> ignore that last amendment, the original IPR statement is still in
> force, and the guy who sent that has been moved to our rendering plant"
> is also valid.

Exactly. Keep the trail of breadcrumbs, and leave any dispute
resolution strictly outside the IETF.

    Brian

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:23:10 +0200

> is the same.  I think our process pretty much puts out of that

For individual documents your argument appears solid, but I don't think
it would hold for WG documents that have the same draft name.  As we
know, some WG's have been open for many years so picking up an expired
WG document years later doesn't seem entirely unlikely.

However, strictly speaking, I don't believe the filename is a useful
unique identifier.  For example, two authors could have the same name,
resulting in draft filename re-use years later.  Having an old patent
disclosures apply if the new authors have the same name as the old
authors, and the old patent disclosure not apply if the new authors have
different names as the old authors, seems silly.  The filenames aren't
what is important.

I believe it is more appropriate that patent disclosures are related to
the _content_ of a specific draft, rather than to its filename.  If you
think about it this way, it doesn't matter whether the filename is
changed or not.  My reading of RFC 3979 suggests this is what the policy
actually says.  I'm curious if you or anyone has another interpretation.

Indeed.

/Simon

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:23:49 +1200

On 2008-08-16 02:57, Simon Josefsson wrote:
...
> anti-spam mechanism already in place.

No, no, a thousand times no. This is exactly what we used to do.
It doesn't scale, with a busy Secretariat. That's why we used to
have a multiple-month backlog in posting IPR disclosures and that's
why the current self-service tool was created.

The "spam" issue has been misunderstood. The tool is essentially
a wiki with no validation mechanism whatever, so if people scribble
nonsense, it shows up as a disclosure until it gets manually
removed. There's no issue there unless we are all collectively
deprived of common sense.

I'd be in favour of adding some sort of confirmation mechanism
like we have for posting I-Ds; that would probably stop all but
the most determined nonsense-scribblers. But we absolutely shouldn't
add manual vetting by the Secretariat, the IAD or anyone else;
that gets us well down the slippery slope of judging all
IPR disclosures.

     Brian

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:27:29 -0700

>under the same rules as any other IETF mailing list?

Yes, many.

- It keeps the current URLs in place.

- It does not require us to keep a stable mailing list archive, which 
still seems to be difficult (that's not a criticism, I have a hard 
time doing that myself)

- A mailing list doesn't have the same feeling as a web site.

>OpenPGP/MIME or S/MIME in e-mail as well.

Oh, please. "You" is a great overstatement here. Also, it ignores 
long-term key keeping and all the operational issues with secure mail 
archives that the IETF (including me, again) has mostly ignored for 
15 years now.

>As far as I can tell, an IETF

There is certainly a perceptual difference. It is also easier to have 
control over.

>new process that effectively have the same properties.

I did not mean my proposal to be a new process, just a delta from the 
current process that is mostly working.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:38:30 +0200

"Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]> writes:

> IMO this simply underscores the valid separation of patent

Indeed, and I believe that various IETF documents' prolific use of the
term "IPR" has significantly added to this confusion.  I suggest that we
say "patent" if we refer to patents, and say "copyright" if we refer to
copyrights.  Patents and copyrights are quite different beasts and it
hurts clarity to refer to them with the "IPR" term, a term that also
covers other things which are rarely intended.

/Simon

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:48:54 -0700

>WG document years later doesn't seem entirely unlikely.

AVT's chair just stepped down after 10 years of service (thanks, Colin!),
so it is definitely not impossible.  If a WG draft is getting picked up
with largely the same content and new editors, there is no need
for a new declaration.  If there is a change, there is always a risk
that the old declaration is still present but no longer applies; our
system relies on the person making the IPR declaration to notice
this and do something about it.  Alternatively, the person *reading*
the notice can follow the link to the claimed IPR and decide for
themselves whether they believe it or not. 

>resulting in draft filename re-use years later. 

This doesn't worry me a lot, as it would have to be a combination
of the same name, topic, and probably wg name.  There are
possibilities for issues here, but those sharing the same name
working in the IETF on the same issues seem to have found
ways around them (possibly with same assistance from the
secretariat I'm not aware of).

>Having an old patent

Here's some of the text from 6.1.1

  Any Contributor who reasonably and personally knows of IPR meeting
   the conditions of Section 6.6 which the Contributor believes Covers
   or may ultimately Cover his or her Contribution, or which the
   Contributor reasonably and personally knows his or her employer or
   sponsor may assert against Implementing Technologies based on such
   Contribution, must make a disclosure in accordance with this Section
   6.

   This requirement specifically includes Contributions that are made by
   any means including electronic or spoken comments, unless the latter
   are rejected from consideration before a disclosure could reasonably
   be submitted.  An IPR discloser is requested to withdraw a previous
   disclosure if a revised Contribution negates the previous IPR
   disclosure, or to amend a previous disclosure if a revised
   Contribution substantially alters the previous disclosure.

The IPR statement is about the contribution, in other words;
the filename is just a way of referencing the contribution for
internet drafts. 

Reading through this, I see that the recommendation that
an IPR discloser "withdraw a previous disclosure if a revised
Contribution negates the previous IPR disclosure" made it into
the BCP.  Someone else will have to decide if this is already
consonant with Paul's suggestion, or whether it would have
to be amended.

		regards,
				Ted

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:15:59 +0200

> themselves whether they believe it or not.

Right, but that assumes the disclosure is still around at that time.
This part of the thread started with arguments from Stephan that it
should be allowed to remove disclosures.  I'm trying to provide
arguments for keeping disclosures around indefinitely.  You appears to
assume this, and if most people already agree with that, I don't think
we need to discuss this aspect further.

/Simon

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:18:12 -0400 (EDT)

Jim has a fine idea in principle, but in practice defensive patents are
necessary. Keep in mind that the patent system is changing to
first-to-file, from first-to-invent.  Prior art is still not patentable,
but the patent law still gives significant advantages to patent holders
over public domain technology users.  In a patent suit, by law the
patent is to be presumed valid by the court.  A patent could be filed on
a novel improvement to the public domain technology, or on an
unpublished but otherwise public domain technology that either all but
obsoletes the PD work, or makes it somehow unusable. Without a defensive
patent, it is impossible to obtain a cross license scenario that
essentially negates the offensive patent.  The current law strongly
promotes patenting and disadvantages not patenting, which is an
unfortunate fact that cannot be ignored. 

[The LPF and other organizations are working in various ways to change
the patent law. There is a case that is going to be before the US
Supreme Court which could invalidate software as a category, but we
can't presume that case will be resolved in our favor. Though I might
add that the general trend in patent law for over 400 years has been to
restrict and reduce patenting, with some notable exceptions]

Its also entirely possible that a novel patent may be so useful as to
leave no choice but agreement to terms.  Consider for example the fast
fourier transform versus the fourier transform. Both do the same job at
the end, but the FFT is so much faster that it makes real-time fourier
analysis possible where it wouldn't even be doable with the unmodified
fourier transform.  There would be no choice but to accept the license
terms on such a novel and incredibly useful invention.

So the problem can't be removed, entirely.

I think the basic procedure of RFC3979 is exactly right: Require
disclosure, consider non-patented alternatives, and make an informed
decision about the costs and benefits giving preference to unencumbered
solutions where possible.  The problems we have had with this procedure
is that authors haven't disclosed, that working group chairs have
suppressed the discussion of non-patented alternatives, or chairs have
entirely disregarded RFC3979 altogether asserting that non-technical
details are irrelevant or a 'rat-hole'.

I think we need to consider the ways that people have tried to
circumvent the procedures required by RFC3979, and to either close the
loopholes if any, or impose penalties on the failure to comply with
RFC3979.  Most troubling is that IETF managers aren't complying with
RFC3979 in WG discussions, and/or aren't requiring authors to comply
with RFC3979. Altering any part of RFC3979 or altering required patent,
copyright or trademark terms won't change non-compliance. So I think the
only alternative, for managers anyway, is some sort of penalty, and
perhaps better education about the policies of the IETF that WG chairs
have to enforce.  Compliance has to start with the WG chairs.

		--Dean

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008, Bound, Jim wrote:

> Have read all this thus far and complex problem/discussion and good to
> have here.  I know this is heresy to many vendors but I believe the
> IETF should not permit at some date in the future any part of a
> specification to have any IPR from any vendor that is accountable to
> patents or royalties.  In simpler terms anything we develop in the
> IETF is public domain in the legal context, and we do not use any
> vendor patents for any of our work.  Just remove the problem entirely.
> As specs are implemented IPR added value can be done by vendors and
> inventors to improve and customize their product or invention to
> attain larger ROI in the market competitively, but the base core IETF
> specs are patent, royalty, and IPR free to all worldwide regardless of
> geography or governmental boundaries.
>

---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:03:37 -0700

Hi Simon, all,

Before some "silence means approval" assumption kicks in here, allow me to
voice my concerns again.  I continue to believe that changing the current
practice (which allows the removal of disclosures form the IETF database) is
NOT a good thing.  Don't get me wrong: I don't believe that the act of
removing a disclosure form a database actually removes any obligations
resulting from promises made---nor does, in my opinion, the update of a
disclosure.  I'm not going to repeat my arguments again; I think they are
known. 

However, realizing that a consensus in another direction may be forming, let
me suggest four amendments to Paul Hoffman's proposal on the table:

a. The submitter should have some control over which disclosures should be
shown in an obvious place, and which require some "digging".  A simple way
to implement that would be a "visible" flag in the database; when viewing
the database in "basic" mode, only those "visible" flagged disclosures would
be displayed; in  expert mode, however, all disclosures would be accessible.

b. At present, the database is organized into three sectors, "general IPR
statements", "specific IPR statements", and "third party IPR statements".
Along the lines of the discussion on ietf@ietf, to avoid future confusion, I
suggest replacing the word "IPR" with "Patents" (or "Patents, Patent
applications, and similar rights" to make the lawyers happy), and add a
fourth category "non-patent IPR".  Things like the Jabber trademark
statement https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/324/ would go to the new
category.

c. It has to be understood and documented that the past practice does not
constitute any wrongdoing; neither by the IETF officers and staff, nor by
the rightholders who requested removal of disclosures.

d. Whatever the outcome of this discussion is, it needs to be documented
beyond mailing list postings.  I don't particularly care whether this
documentation is in the form of an BCP, or an IESG position statement, or
whatever... (Well, ideally, it would be an BCP I guess---community
consensus).  This does not mean that the tools work would have to wait for
the BCP to be issued; nor that companies voluntarily stop submitting removal
requests from the database.  For Nokia, I can say that we are prepared to do
so.

Regards,
Stephan

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:09:38 +0200

> disclosure.  I'm not going to repeat my arguments again; I think they are

The problem remains.  If patent disclosures are removed, future
participants have less information to make informed decisions on.  That
appears to be in conflict with the intentions behind the IETF patent
policies, to make it possible for everyone to make their own informed
decisions.

> be displayed; in  expert mode, however, all disclosures would be accessible.

I would prefer a model where the "removal" flag is done as another
disclosure.  This allows the company to explain their reasons for asking
for a removal.

Right now, as far as I understand, companies may explain the reasons for
removing a patent disclosure to the IETF Chair (or whomever is
responsible for the IETF patent disclosure web page) in order to
authorize the removal request, but this information is not seen by
anyone else.  This appears like a violation of the "we will not evaluate
patent related claims" dogma, and there may be liabilities here.

> statement https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/324/ would go to the new

I support this.  It may require changes to IETF documents around patent
policies to make the terminology consistent though, which could be
challenging.

The sections could be:

Copyright related disclosures
Patent related disclosures
Trademark related disclosures

If there are other disclosures that are relevant, let's add sections for
them instead of using a "IPR" kitchen sink.

> the rightholders who requested removal of disclosures.

I don't see a reason to do that.  There may be liability issues around
making declarations like that, so the IETF should better avoid it.

> beyond mailing list postings.

Agreed.

/Simon

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:19:57 -0400

I have to agree with a number of other folks.  Patent statements can not 
be removed.  It is probably reasonable to have a section for "apparently 
not currently relevant" disclosures.  But the disclosures, and the terms 
therein, are still active.  This is important for many reasons, 
including confirming what was historically relied on, having available 
information if a working group returns to an item, and other issues.

Adding annotations, and organizing information for simplicity and 
clarity are fine.  Removing information is not fine.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:50:23 -0400

I don't feel that strongly about being able to remove patent disclosures
which no longer have any value; if the concensus is to keep them in an
increasingly cluttered list of disclosures, so be it. The only situation
I was looking to avoid was the whining that would ensue when a patent
holder submitted a disclosure for a specific contribution into a
specific working group, the technology doesn't make it into the
standard, and then someone else later tries to take that same
technology, knowing (or not) that a disclosure was on file for it for
the original submission, puts it into an ID for another working group,
and then finds out the hard way that the original licensing commitment
doesn't apply. However, I guess knowing that there might be some
proprietary technology in the original contribution (and thus the latter
one) would still be useful information, even if the licensing commitment
was no longer valid.

I expect the result will be more specifics in each patent disclosure,
and the subsequent submission of amendments by patent holders
reiterating that a licensing commitment is no longer valid, with the
failure of the specific contribution to make it into the IETF standard
that was originally targeted.

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Behalf Of Joel M. Halpern
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:20 AM
> To: Simon Josefsson
> Cc: IETF Discussion
> I have to agree with a number of other folks.  Patent 
> statements can not be removed.  It is probably reasonable to 
> have a section for "apparently not currently relevant" 
> disclosures.  But the disclosures, and the terms therein, are 
> still active.  This is important for many reasons, including 
> confirming what was historically relied on, having available 
> Adding annotations, and organizing information for simplicity 
> and clarity are fine.  Removing information is not fine.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel M. Halpern
>

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:02:36 +0200

> one) would still be useful information, even if the licensing commitment

Indeed.  If the original patent disclosure has been removed, there would
be no way to know that the contribution was covered by patent claims and
then the document would be fair game for re-publication by someone else.

I believe there would be significantly more whining if the IETF had
removed the patent license in the situation you describe.

So I think your argument is actually one in favor of disallowing
removals.

> that was originally targeted.

That seems fairly common already.

What can happen is also that companies decide that restricting the
patent license to published standards doesn't give them any advantage,
and they decide to use more liberal patent licenses.

/Simon

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:07:07 -0700

> clarity are fine.  Removing information is not fine.

+1

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:10:54 +1200

On 2008-08-16 10:48, Ted Hardie wrote:
...
> consonant with Paul's suggestion, or whether it would have

"Withdraw" does not imply "remove", of course. To me, it has
always meant "update the existing disclosure to state that
it does not apply to the later draft." It still applies to
the earlier draft, and that earlier draft is still an
IETF Contribution for all eternity.

   Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:19:16 +1200

On 2008-08-16 05:44, Powers Chuck-RXCP20 wrote:

> standards process, 

I read the text of RFC 2026 as Simon does, but RFC 3667 and 3978 added
the phrase "within the IETF Standards Process" to the derivative
works rights (clause 3.3.a.(C) ).

However, that phrase was removed from the equivalent clause
5.3.(C) of draft-ietf-ipr-3978-incoming.
Also, draft-ietf-ipr-outbound-rights says:

"4.2.  Rights Granted for Quoting from IETF Contributions

   There is rough consensus that it is useful to permit the quoting
   without modification of excerpts from IETF Contributions.  Such
   excerpts may be of any length and in any context.  Translation of
   quotations is also to be permitted.  All such quotations should be
   attributed properly to the IETF and the IETF contribution from which
   they are taken."

There doesn't seem to be much doubt of the IPR WG's intention
to change this. I've just re-read the IPR WG charter, and this sort
of adjustment seems to be in scope.

> the result will (appropriately) be to have more
> holders from making such refined declarations, 

But there is. The derivative works statements are limited to those
allowed in the Legend Instructions; see clause 6c in
http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF_Trust_Legal_Provisions_for_IETF_Docs_8-13-08.pdf

> and such declarations

I don't see that. IPR disclosures are about patents. The derivative
works language is about text.

   Brian

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:03:28 +0200

> http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF_Trust_Legal_Provisions_for_IETF_Docs_8-13-08.pdf

As far as I understand, that clause is about copyrights, not patents.
Patent disclosures can state almost anything, and can certainly say that
they are only valid if document X becomes an IETF standard.

> works language is about text.

Alas, RFC 3979 seems pretty clear to me that "IPR" is intended to cover
many things:

   o. "IPR" or "Intellectual Property Rights": means patent, copyright,
      utility model, invention registration, database and data rights
      that may Cover an Implementing Technology, whether such rights
      arise from a registration or renewal thereof, or an application
      therefore, in each case anywhere in the world.

To me the use of the term "IPR Disclosure" in RFC 3979 refers to
disclosures about any kind of "IPR" as defined in that document.

Fixing the language in RFC 3979 to not confuse patents with copyrights
etc would be a commendable effort.

/Simon

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:10:42 +1200

> etc would be a commendable effort.

Yes, but it doesn't change the fact that our rules (both old and
proposed new) only allow two very specific deviations from the
grant of license for derivative works.

     Brian

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:20:40 +0200

Agreed.

I assumed Chuck talked about patent disclosures when he said "IPR
disclosure", and then he would be correct that they can say anything and
the language in them will likely change given the new policies.  I
assume you interpreted him as meaning copyright disclosure, and then he
would be wrong as you explained; there are only very limited copyright
choices when contributing anything to the IETF.  Re-reading what he
wrote, I'm not sure what he intended.

Another reason to avoid the term "IPR"...

/Simon

---

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:43:13 -0700

IPR's are forever - they can be updated but they will exist forever.  Once 
filed the IPR is the property of the IETF and is published with its works 
under the same copyright rules too right?

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ted Hardie" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]>; "Simon Josefsson" 
<[email-masked]>; "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>; 
"IETF Discussion" <>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?

---

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:04:26 -0700

IP Folks

The fact that there is a IPR process means that there is now an obligation 
to use it, and so we now need to factor in what it was intended for.

To meet this new hurdle my suggestion is that the IP Submission Process now 
also has a set of statement's with checkboxes added which say something 
like:

   "The submitter declares they have reviewed the IPR database and this new 
submission doesn't violate any of the published IPR notices that the IETF is 
aware of at the submission time. "

As to why, the smartest thing to do is to offload that as a new checkbox on 
the submission form.  Likewise the template for the email submitted material 
would also want a new declaration added to it as well as a eSign statement 
to cover all the bases.

Todd
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Crocker" <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF Discussion" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 7:07 AM
Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?

>> therein, are still active.  This is important for many reasons, including 
>> confirming what was historically relied on, having available information 
>> if a working group returns to an item, and other issues.
>>
>> Adding annotations, and organizing information for simplicity and clarity 
>> are fine.  Removing information is not fine.
>
>
> +1
>
> d/
> -- 
>
>   Dave Crocker

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:33:03 -0400

Indeed, I was referring to patent licensing statements, and not
copyrights (which are not usually addressed in the disclosure statements
that patent owners submit).

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 7:21 PM
> To: Brian E Carpenter
> Cc: John C Klensin; Powers Chuck-RXCP20; [email-masked]
> > proposed new) only allow two very specific deviations from 
> the grant 
> > of license for derivative works.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> I assumed Chuck talked about patent disclosures when he said 
> "IPR disclosure", and then he would be correct that they can 
> say anything and the language in them will likely change 
> given the new policies.  I assume you interpreted him as 
> meaning copyright disclosure, and then he would be wrong as 
> you explained; there are only very limited copyright choices 
> when contributing anything to the IETF.  Re-reading what he