Subject: WG Action: RECHARTER: Intellectual Property Rights (ipr)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:00:01 -0500

The Intellectual Property Rights (ipr) working group in the General Area 
of the IETF has been rechartered. For additional information, please contact
the Area Directors or the working group Chairs.

+++

Intellectual Property Rights (ipr)
==================================

Current Status: Active Working Group

Chair(s):
Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Steven Bellovin <[email-masked]>

General Area Director(s):
Brian Carpenter <[email-masked]>

General Area Advisor:
Brian Carpenter <[email-masked]>

Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: [email-masked]
To Subscribe: [email-masked]
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ipr-wg/index.html

Description of Working Group:

The IETF and the Internet have greatly benefited from the free
exchange of ideas and technology. For many years the IETF normal
behavior was to standardize only unencumbered technology.
While the "Tao" of the IETF is still strongly oriented toward
unencumbered technology, we can and do make use of technology that has
various encumbrances.
One of the goals of the IETF IPR policy has been to make it easier
for the IETF to make use of encumbered technology when it made
sense to do so.

This group has attempted to clarify and update that IPR policy,
resulting in RFC 3978, RFC 3979 and RFC 3905. The WG has also
discussed the possibility of changing the IETF's patent policy, but
did not detect a consensus for doing so.

At the time of this recharter (February 2006), there are two
remaining items of work for the WG:

- An issue with the production of derivative works has led to the
realization that RFC 2026 and RFC 3978 do not specify exactly the
same policy on this matter, and that neither policy, when read
literally, may be optimal for the IETF's purpose,
in accordance with its mission statement (RFC 3935), its policy
of retaining change control of its own documents, and its desire
for its documents to be openly available and useful.

- The creation of the IETF Trust for managing the IETF IPR has led
to the question of how the Trustees should evaluate the
benefit of the IETF community as a whole and if necessary the
consensus of the IETF on a given matter. Specifically the question
arises whether the previous discussions of the IPR WG have led to
experience that should be codified for the guidance of the Trustees.

The WG will produce 3 documents:

- An update to RFC 3978 (BCP) that attempts to specify a complete set
of rights with respect to derivative works granted to the IETF by
authors, as well as technical updates necessitated by the existence
of the Trust
- A document (info) giving advice to the IETF Trust on what rights in
IETF contributions it should attempt to grant to the public in order
to retain change control while allowing open access, resolving the
discrepancy between RFC 2026 and RFC 3978
- A document (info) giving other advice to the IETF Trust on IPR
handling, based on the IPR WG's experience of discussions in the area

The last document may include advice to the IETF Trust on
mechanisms for consulting with the community on IPR issues once the
IPR WG has closed, if consensus on such advice can be found.

The IPR WG may decide to drop the last document from its charter if
it decides that it has nothing to say.

All documents should have an IETF-wide Last Call before being approved.

Goals and Milestones:

Done 1st draft of RFC 3978 update
Feb 2006 1st draft of granted rights advice doc
Feb 2006 1st draft of IPR advice doc
Mar 2006 RFC 3978 update to IESG for approval
Apr 2006 Granted rights advice to IESG for approval
Aug 2006 IPR advice to IESG for approval
Oct 2006 Once documents are all published, close WG

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