Subject: Model patent license (RE: DNSEXT Minutes @ IETF-63 [Software Patent issues denieddiscussion] )

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2005 07:22:53 +0200

--On 8. september 2005 20:08 -0700 "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I didn't see the original note -- if it was from whom I think it was,
>> my killfile took care of that -- but for a more authoritative
>> description of the situation, see the first two paragraphs of
>> Section 2 of RFC 3669.
>
> Without wanting to engage the dispute ove minutes I think that it would
> be useful if the IETF had a definition of an 'open patent license' even
> if WGs were not required to insist on it.

I agree - and I think the IPR WG's mailing list is the right place to have 
the public discussion of that issue.

Unfortunately efforts to write a candidate license have fizzled out 
numerous times in the past - partly because it's genuinely hard to do, 
partly because the lawyers who might write it see some legal risk in trying 
to write one (they fear being accused of trying to bias such a license to 
their particular ends), partly because the acrimony surrounding this issue 
has been rather uncomfortable, to say the least, in past discussions.

May be time to try again - I think it's definitely needed.

                    Harald