Subject: Internet Fax and intellectual property

From: "Larry Masinter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 02:35:36 PDT

RFC 2028, "The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process"
also BCP 11, states:

   To ensure a fair and open process, participants in the IETF and its
   Working Groups must be able to disclose, and must disclose to the
   Working Group chairs any relevant current or pending intellectual
   property rights that are reasonably and personally known to the
   participant if they participate in discussions about a specific
   technology.

One of the authors of Proposed Standard RFC 2305, "A Simple Mode of
Facsimile Using Internet Mail", Mr. Kiyoshi Toyoda, is also listed as
an applicant for US Patent 5812278, such patent being applied for
Oct. 21, 1996 and published Sept. 22, 1998. While it is difficult
to pierce the legalese of patent claims, it seems to me to be a reasonable
interpretation of US patent 5812278 that it covers some of the mechanisms
required in order to practice RFC 2305. One might assume that
Mr. Toyoda might reasonably and personally have known about the pending
intellectual property rights claims. RFC 2026 also suggests, with respect
to contributing a document (including an Internet Draft):

   6. The contributor represents that he has disclosed the existence of
      any proprietary or intellectual property rights in the
      contribution that are reasonably and personally known to the
      contributor.

It's not clear if the required processes were followed, at least by those
who clearly could reasonably be expected to be aware of intellectual
property claims, by dint of having files for a patent. Or, to be
blunter, it's fairly clear that these policies were _not_ observed.

RFC 2026, Best Current Practice 9, "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3" contains extensive language about intellectual property
rights, but section 10.3.2 ("Standards Track Documents") indicates
several steps that the working group should do:

(a) bring the various intellectual property claims to the attention
    of the IESG.
(b) assist the IETF Executive Director in the effort of obtaining
    a written assurance that rights will be granted, under terms
    meeting the criteria within RFC 2026.

Beyond this, I am uncertain as to what action as a group or individually
we should take, although I'm can think of several alternative courses
of action.

Larry
-- 
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter

---

From: KiyoshiToyoda <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 21:33:53 +0900

Dear Masinter-san,

US Patent 5812278 is not required in order to practice RFC 2305.
It claims about the function of an onramp gateway. An onramp
gateway is beyond the scope of RFC 2305. 

The abstract of US Patent 5812278 is not correct. This Patent
claims about the method of returning error message to an ordinary 
facsimile when the machine, which receive the data from the ordinary
facsimile, can not transfer the data to PC by e-mail. 

I can't explain the detail of the content about claims now because I 
am not good at English.

Please read the Exemplary Claim in the Patent. I hope you can understand 
what I said.

Best Regards,

--
KiyoshiToyoda  
[email-masked]
M.G.C.S

---

From: James Rafferty <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:04:02 -0400

>Please read the Exemplary Claim in the Patent. I hope you can understand 
In re-reading the exemplary claim in light of Mr. Toyoda's comment, it does
appear to refer to an on-ramp operation, since reference is first made to a
fax receiving facility.   By contrast, the abstract refers to a scanner and
infers this is the input device, a point which does not seem to appear at
all (at least to this reader) in the actual claims.   

As Mr. Toyoda has noted, onramps are out of scope for RFC 2305.   

It is unfortunate/troubling at such a mistake would be made in abstract.
Most of the points made in the abstract don't seem to relate to the
underlying claims at all.  

Could it be that there is another patent out there to which this abstract
belongs?   

Please note that I make no claims to legal expertise on these matters and
other people might interpret this information differently.   

Sincerely,  

James Rafferty 

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