Subject: [Idr] Posting of IPR Disclosure for draft-ietf-idr-flow-spec

From: Yakov Rekhter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:38:28 -0800

Folks,

Given that the draft just recently went through WG and IETF LC, if
folks have a concern, they should voice it asap.

Yakov.
------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:12:54 -0800
From:    IETF Secretariat <[email-masked]>
To:      [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], raszuk@juniper
	  .net,
	 [email-masked], [email-masked]
cc:      [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
	 [email-masked], [email-masked]
Subject: Posting of IPR Disclosure

Dear Pedro Roque Marques, Danny McPherson, Nischal Sheth, Robert Raszuk, Barry 
Greene, Jared Mauch:

An IPR disclosure that pertains to your Internet-Draft entitled "Dissemination
of flow specification rules" (draft-ietf-idr-flow-spec) was submitted to the
IETF Secretariat on 2009-02-09 and has been posted on the "IETF Page of
Intellectual Property Rights Disclosures"
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/ipr_list.cgi). The title of the IPR
disclosure is "Juniper's Statement of IPR related to
draft-ietf-idr-flow-spec-03."

The IETF Secretariat

------- End of Forwarded Message

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From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:58:56 -0500

FWIW, I believe that this document cannot and should not be advanced
unless the WG explicitly goes on record as stating that even with the
recent IPR disclosure, they still want to publish as a PS.

Silence cannot be interpreted as approval.

Thomas

---

From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:30:37 -0500

> recent IPR disclosure, they still want to publish as a PS.

   I wouldn't demand quite that much, but I must urge the IESG not to
approve it _today_.

   The IPR disclosure clearly indicates that royalties might me charged;
and I am unable to find the patent application on the patent office site.

> Silence cannot be interpreted as approval.

   I agree. We have typically been dominated by corporations that will
not find RAND to be a problem, but there are at least two "free"
implementations of BGP in use that would be unable to pay royalties.

   If the WG chooses to say that the benefit exceeds that expense,
we need to say so clearly and publicly.

--
John Leslie <[email-masked]>

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:56:38 -0500

THE WG should probably look at this.
But it is hard to know whether this is worse than typical.  And it does 
not appear to be a matter of "expense."

The terms Juniper states are:
1) If you sue them, they reserve the right to sue you over infringing 
this patent
2) If there is something patented that is not "necessary for compliance 
with the standard" then they reserve the right to assert / license / 
control that.

Based on this, the question is not one of expense, but one of applicability.

Point 1 is clearly not a a problem or cost for the free community, and 
is a widely accepted condition in the commercial community.  We have 
accepted many standards track documents with defensive patent claims on 
them.

Point 2 is where the applicability issue comes in.  I have seen lawyers 
argue that as long as there is some context way of implementing the spec 
that can be implemented without the claim they are asserting, then the 
claim is not "necessary for compliance with the specification.  In that 
case, the reservation is very dangerous.
Conversely, it is fairly reasonable for a company to say that if you as 
a commercial implementor are doing something way beyond what the spec 
describes, and their patent describes that, then they can come after 
you.  That is what the game is about.  (I say "fairly reasonable" to 
stay out of the protracted argument about what corporate patent policies 
should be.)

(Of course, this is even harder to evaluate relative to filed but not 
yet granted patents, which can change before granting.)

Yours,
Joel

John Leslie wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Idr mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/idr
>

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:10:47 +0200

The normal process is that the WG considers all aspects, technical and 
IPR, and makes a decision that they want to proceed.

 From my personal perspective the license conditions appear quite 
reasonable, should be OK even from open source point of view. But there 
is one word that troubled me a bit. Can we get anyone from Juniper to 
clarify whether "standard adopted by IETF" implies a standards track 
RFC, and NOT only full Standard (which might never be reached)?

But in any case, particularly since the IPR declarations came in so 
late, I think it would be best if the WG made an official decision (new 
WGLC) about this issue. I believe there are a few technical discusses 
from the IESG review today, so you could handle that in parallel.

Jari

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:25:11 -0500

>   The IPR disclosure clearly indicates that royalties might me  

There was an IPR disclosure that did say that.  It's been retracted  
(and apologized for, but I'll do so again here and now on behalf of my  
employer: sorry!).  The correct and current disclosure is the usual  
royalty-free, non-assert version.  See https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1088/ 
  and http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/juniper-ipr-draft-ietf-idr-flow-spec-03.txt 
  for corroboration.

(I assume you were referring to the first, erroneous disclosure.  If  
you're referring to the non-assert or "not necessary for compliance"  
clauses, you'll find those in most IPR disclosures that have ever been  
made to the IETF by any company.  IMO you can't ask for better than  
that without simply insisting that the IETF eschew IPR-encumbered  
standards completely.  But that ship sailed a long time ago and is  
completely impractical besides.)

> and I am unable to find the patent application on the patent office  

The issued patent can be found easily.  As for the applications, I've  
never had much luck with searching for them either in this case or any  
other.  Seems like a USPTO issue though, not an IETF issue.

> implementations of BGP in use that would be unable to pay royalties.

Again, please note that the correct disclosure is royalty-free (though  
with the usual non-assert caveat, which probably is even less likely  
than usual to be invoked with respect to an open-source implementation).

--John

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:36:25 -0500

On Feb 12, 2009, at 10:10 AM, Jari Arkko wrote:
> Can we get anyone from Juniper to clarify whether "standard adopted  
> by IETF" implies a standards track RFC, and NOT only full Standard  
> (which might never be reached)?

I'll request clarification from Juniper Legal and get back to you (or  
have someone do so).  However, I can tell you that Juniper has no  
hidden agenda at all with respect to IPR disclosures, so I'll  
personally be quite shocked if the answer isn't "any standards track  
RFC".

Note that the IPR disclosure lists a contact at Juniper Legal.  Anyone  
with concerns is certainly welcome to use it, that's why it was  
published.

Regards,

--John

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:48:03 +0200

John,

> have someone do so).

Great - thanks.

> However, I can tell you that Juniper has no hidden agenda at all with 
> respect to IPR disclosures, so I'll personally be quite shocked if the 
> answer isn't "any standards track RFC".

Right, and didn't want to imply you had any either. I only raised 
because my company had in the past used the same terms, and gotten some 
people confused.

Jari

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:00:22 -0500

On Feb 12, 2009, at 10:36 AM, John G. Scudder wrote:
> I'll request clarification from Juniper Legal and get back to you  
> (or have someone do so).  However, I can tell you that Juniper has  
> no hidden agenda at all with respect to IPR disclosures, so I'll  

This is confirmed per Juniper Legal: we intended to include any  
standards track RFC.

Regards,

--John

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:10:21 +0200

Great, thanks for the super fast response!

So: I have no problem with the work going forward.

Jari

---

From: "John G. Scudder" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:49:36 -0500

One further point:

On Feb 12, 2009, at 9:56 AM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> Point 2 is where the applicability issue comes in.  I have seen  
> lawyers argue that as long as there is some context way of  
> implementing the spec that can be implemented without the claim they  
> are asserting, then the claim is not "necessary for compliance with  
> the specification.  In that case, the reservation is very dangerous.

My previous comment that Juniper has no hidden agenda with respect to  
IPR disclosures is the real answer to this.

However, I'll also point out that even if a company *was* hatching the  
dastardly plan you describe above, they would seem awfully foolish to  
publish a notice that "<company> is the owner of US Patent <foo>  
relating to the subject matter of <draft>".  If I were a judge (we can  
all thank our lucky stars I'm not) I would look askance if the company  
then tried to tell me that patent <foo> is *not* necessary for  
compliance with <draft>.  ("Tell me, counselor -- what *did* you mean  
by 'relating to the subject matter of'"?)

Regards,

--John