Subject: Part 3 - comments/feedback on Bradner "technology-rights-01" draft

From: "Valerie See" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 11:28:57 -0800

The last part (3rd) of my comments on Scott Bradner's "technology"
draft:

7. Section 6.2.2. For clarity, I'd like to suggest that this text change

to "The disclosure must be made as soon as reasonably possible after the

IPR claims become personally and reasonably known to the IETF
participant."

8. Section 6.2.3.  This text seems as though it really is an extension
of 
Section 6.2.1. that applies just to contributors, and therefore I would 
suggest moving it to the end of that section.  Also, to make it clear
that 
this is a contributor-specific provision (since participants are covered
by 
section 6.2.2.), I would suggest changing the last part of the final
sentence 
to "made by the contributor as soon as reasonably possible after the IPR
claims 
become personally and reasonably known to the contributor."

9. Section 6.6 When is a Disclosure Required? - Scott Brim spoke earlier
to the 
difficulties associated with the "benefits" language here - I'd agree.
Might 
one way to address this be to have this section match the related text
in section 
1.c.? I.e. something along these lines "Except for third party
disclosures (which are 
encouraged under section 6.1.3), disclosures are required whenever the
contributor 
or IETF participant believes that a patent claim would be necessary to
implement 
the technology required by the specific I-D or RFC under discussion by
the working 
group." A minor editorial note would be to make certain that this
language then be 
applied (where needed) consistently throughout the doc as a whole. For
example, section 
2.2.1. contains a different articulation (disclosure of IPRs which
"cover the 
technology... described in the contribution") and section 4(B) speaks of
disclosure 
of all rights "which may cover technology that may be required to
practice this 
standard."  The ideal approach would be for the concept to be defined
the first time 
it is used in section 1.c., or added as a new defined term in the
definition section 
(perhaps as "Essential Patent Claims"?) and then use that defined term
throughout.  
This approach is consistent with the recent comments by Joe Zabarth of
Nortel and 
Jorge Contreras, who (similar to Scott Brim) propose to clarify that the
disclosure 
obligation under RFC 2026 applies to "essential" patent claims (if I
understood them
correctly).

10. I've made some comments on Scott Brim's draft and will not repeat
those 
comments here, but since several have to do with inconsistencies between
the Brim 
and Bradner drafts, as well as other issues also covered by the Bradner
draft (such 
as the overly broad definition of IPR and the need for a clearer
statement explaining 
the distinction between IETF participants acting as individuals on the
one hand and 
the IPR policy binding their "represented" orgs on the other), they are
equally relevant here.

11. Section 7:  

(a) I'd suggest that the last sentence should be reworded as follows:
"But this 
requirement should not be interpreted as requiring the IETF contributor
or 
participant (or his or her represented organization, if any) to perform
a patent 
search at any time."  As currently written, it seems too focused on the
orgs, rather 
than the individual IETF participants. 

(b) I would also suggest switching the phrase "reasonably and personally
known" to 
"personally and reasonably known" and make this a global change. It
seems to make 
more sense to reference first what the individual "personally" knows and
then to 
reference what he "reasonably" should know based on his position, etc.

12. Section 3 (C): I think that the phrase "openly specified" may be
confusing 
in this context as it may suggest an obligation by licensors to reveal
publicly 
their license terms.  This would appear to be in conflict with section
6.5, which 
states that a patent holder is not even required to make a licensing
declaration.  
Because this phrase seems likely to cause confusion and disputes down
the road, 
I would suggest deleting it.

13. Although ordinarily the practice of cross referencing to other IETF
publications 
serves the org well, I think we may wish to consider for the maximum
clarity on these 
issues bringing in definitions and key points from the copyrights doc
rather than 
cross referencing, just to ensure that readers have them readily at
hand. (Sorry for the
dupe, I think somebody else may have mentioned this recently as well.)

14. Second paragraph of section 9: second sentence, add the word
"people" before 
the second occurrence of "or organizations" (for consistency) and change
the following 
"who" to "that".

15. The language in section 1 referencing IPR issues "Section 2, 3, and
4 of this 
document address the intellectual property issues previously covered by
Section 10 of 
RFC 2026" makes it sound as if RFC 2026 is being replaced by this
clarification document, 
which seems likely to create some confusion. Could this be clarified by
instead saying 
"Sections 2, 3, and 4 of this document clarify the intellectual property
issues covered 
by Section 10 of RFC 2026"?  Again, as I mentioned in my overarching
concern above, 
we need to clearly understand and clearly explain how these documents
relate to one another.
 
16. On a related point (and sorry, one that had been elsewhere discussed
at length re: 
"modification" vs "clarification" of the IETF IPR policy): Section 1
language stating 
it is not the intent of this document to "substantially modify" the IETF
IPR policy 
implies that "some" modification is ok, which from our charter is not
presently our task. 
Perhaps "substantially modify" should be deleted to avoid this potential
point of 
confusion/contention? 

17. Need a period at the end of last sentence in section 1.

18. Section 11, rectify typos "and but" and "there have are" in last
sentence.

Apologies again for these lengthy remarks - and again thanks for the
efforts you've 
put in on this, Scott!

thanks, Val See
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