Subject: RE: Who do I tell? (A third-party finds IPR that could be problem atic...)

From: "Peterson, Jon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:17:48 -0500

In response to Mr. Moore's note about working groups reviewing patents, the
messages that we received in SIMPLE alluded to hundreds of patents that were
potentially applicable. The SIMPLE community is not in any position to judge
the validity or applicability of this many patents and patent applications
(let alone engage counsel to study them, or negotiate an agreement with
every such patent holder). These disclosure messages stir up vague public
anxiety, but unfortunately provide us with little guidance to our actual
design process. 

I agree strongly with Mr. Carpenter that third-party patent disclosures have
a limited utility. A binary 'encumbered/unencumbered' view of IPR that does
not take into account the likelihood of granting patent applications, the
terms and intentions of the holders, and the plausibility that a patent
would be held up in court, seems self-defeating to me. I suspect that every
implementation of an IETF standard could be construed to infringe in some
way on some patent filed at the USPTO (all right, maybe not RFC2410).
Ascribing encumberance to IETF documents without establishing patent
applicability turns this whole process into a witch-hunt - an accusation is
sufficient to establish guilt, and this guilt is apparently taken seriously
by many. When dozens or hundreds of patents are disclosed, it's impossible
to address the accusation anyway.

One wrinkle that may be specific to this SIMPLE situation: in an area like
instant messaging, in which there are several competing IETF proposals,
sending patent notifications concerning only one such proposal could create
the (possibly erroneous) impression that the same intellectual property does
not cover the other proposals as well. If someone discloses third-party IPR
against SIMPLE for fundamental instant messaging art, is it then my job (as
SIMPLE chair) to make my own third-party disclosures against APEX, IMPP,
XMPP, etc to even the playing field? Am I actually obligated to do this by
the IPR policy?

I would not object to an IPR policy in which disclosures were made to WG
chairs in effected areas, as Mr. Bush suggested. But sending unsolicited
third-party disclosures to the WG is problematic. Although I understand Mr.
Wyman was trying to provide a useful service to the SIMPLE community, giving
us the opportunity to raise prior art on patent applications before it was
too late, there's not really anything we can do with his information from a
technology perspective, and we certainly can't mount some sort of legal
challenge - this only leads to undirected anxiety and general witchiness.
Also, emails with a Subject header of "SIP soon to be useless due to
patents" do not help IPR's image problems in the IETF, in my opinion.

Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc. 
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From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:46:18 -0500

Jon Peterson wrote:
> emails with a Subject header of "SIP soon to be 
> useless due to patents" do not help IPR's image 
> problems in the IETF, in my opinion.
	If I haven't already done so enough, I would like to apologize
for this *one* message to the SIMPLE group. I accept that *that*
specific message was not apropriate even though it expressed a sincere
concern I have with SIP since it is getting so much patent activity. 
	The messages that should be the subject of this discussion are
ones like those in which I listed, with short summaries, various patents
or applications that had been issued or published just days before.
These messages would fall in the category of the "weekly" or "monthly"
messages concerning new IPR that Harald Tveit Alvestrand suggested might
be appropriate.

> sending patent notifications [to only one WG] could create the 
>(possibly erroneous) impression 
	This is, I think, a serious concern in those cases where there
are competitive WGs. More IPR diligence in one WG can make it look bad
relative to the others who may be oblivious to problems they should be
dealing with. Fortunately, we don't usually have such active intra-IETF
competition... However, to illustrate the sort of quandry that faces
someone trying to be helpful in this realm, please understand that as
the poster in question, I was very uncomfortable with the idea of
cross-posting to all the various IM related groups. Cross-posting is
usually frowned upon and is usually inappropriate. 
	What I did was pick what I thought was that IM group most
impacted by patent activity and sent messages to that group only. Note:
This is not suggested as a "defense" of the fact that I only posted to
one IM group, but rather as an illustration of an issue faced by posters
that might be addressed by a more detailed IETF IPR policy or guideline.

	If I posted to any of the IM groups or notified one of the WG
chairs, should I have felt compelled to post-to/notify ALL of them?

		bob wyman

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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:01:19 -0500

On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 03:17:48PM -0500, Peterson, Jon allegedly wrote:
> If someone discloses third-party IPR

Good question.  My belief: it has nothing to do with being SIMPLE Chair.
Rather, as an IETF participant, if you're quite sure there are issues
that those WGs should know about, you should say so.  You could start
out by just telling the Chairs, and work out from there, but yes, I
believe you have that responsibility.
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