Subject: Call for Public Comment on IANA IPR Agreements

From: The IETF Trust <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 12:25:00 -0700

This call for public comment seeks community input on three
agreements concerning intellectual property rights (IPR) related to
the IANA stewardship transition:

- IANA IPR Assignment Agreement 
- IANA IPR License Agreement 
- IANA IPR Community Agreement

Comments are due by the deadline of September 12, 2016 at 23:59 UTC.
Comments should be submitted via email to
[email-masked]. 
Commenters should clearly reference to which of the agreement(s) 
their comments apply.

The ICG web site is being used as a neutral site to host this call
for public comment, but the agreements are not a product of the ICG.

https://www.ianacg.org/call-for-public-comment-on-iana-ipr-agreements/

Background

The Proposal to Transition the Stewardship of the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions from the U.S. Commerce
Department’s National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) to the Global Multistakeholder Community
<http://www.ianacg.org/icg-files/documents/IANA-transition-proposal-final.pdf>

includes a requirement for certain IPR associated with IANA
to be transferred from ICANN to an entity independent of the IANA
functions operator. The IPR consists of trademarks and domain names.

After discussion within the operational communities and the IETF
Trust, the IETF Trust indicated that it would be willing to hold the
IANA IPR.  The IETF Trust <http://trustee.ietf.org/> is a Virginia
common law trust created in 2005. Among other things, the IETF Trust
was created for the purpose of acquiring, holding, maintaining and
licensing certain intellectual property for the advancement of the
science and technology associated with the Internet and related
technology. The IETF Trust agreed to hold the IANA IPR in the
service of the affected Internet operational communities.

Representatives from the names community, the numbers community, the
protocol parameters community, the IETF Trust, and ICANN have
drafted a set of agreements to effectuate the transfer of the IANA
IPR from ICANN to the IETF Trust and to govern the relationships
amongst the parties with respect to the IPR after the transfer.
These agreements are:

(1) IANA IPR Assignment Agreement. This agreement transfers the IPR
from ICANN to the IETF Trust.

(2) IANA IPR License Agreement. This agreement allows for the IANA
functions operator to use the IPR. The document available for public
comment is a basic form that will be used to generate three license
agreements, one each for the names, numbers, and protocol parameters
IANA services. Items highlighted in yellow will vary by agreement
and will be completed once the License Agreement is split into
three. In each case the licensee is ICANN, with the ability
established for ICANN to sublicense to PTI.

(3) IANA IPR Community Agreement. This agreement explains the rights
and obligations of the IETF Trust and each operational community as
regards the IPR.

The IETF Trust, the operational communities, and ICANN hereby
solicit feedback as to whether the draft agreements address the
needs of the affected communities. 

https://www.ianacg.org/call-for-public-comment-on-iana-ipr-agreements/

Tobias Gondrom
Chair
IETF Trust