Subject: Re: disclosure template

From: "Valerie See" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 09:44:01 -0700

On Mon, May 12, 2003 Pekka Savola wrote:

> A quick review.  I'm very disturbed by the output, because there seems a 
> major miscommunication somewhere on the disclosures or licensing -- or 
> I've misunderstood something badly.
> 
> 1) this is totally wrong.
> 
> It also documents the information requested in
>    licensing declarations for IETF Standards, Proposed Standards, and
>   Draft Standards.
>
> ==> the declarations must be made for all the submissions, I think -- 
> whether on (or to be on) the standards track or not!  In particular, this 
> includes Experimental, but also any other IETF document.
> 
> ==> same in the template section V, and commentary sections.

[vsee] I think others may have addressed this somewhat already, but
just to clarify what is going on: this form is a mechanism to address two
separate types of statements - 1) being the disclosure of patent information
in contributions per technology-rights, (relevant for all documents) and 
2) being a statement about your willingness to license patent claims that 
you believe essential to implement technologies in standards track documents. 
For convenience and user simplicity, we drafted this as a single form, 
versus two. Does this help? and would it be of assistance to clarify this
in the surrounding text in the I-D?

>
> 2) 
>
> It should be more explicit about talking about IPR in general, not just 
> patents.  In particular, patent applications come to mind.  Reading the 
> document, it seems that non-camera-ready patent applications were added 
> only as an afterthought, an in an incomplete manner (e.g. title, 
> abstract).

[vsee] We definitely didn't mean it to appear that patent applications were
an afterthought - they weren't. But as others have pointed out, there
are difficulties in getting terribly specific with respect to patent
applications - I think Scott Brim said it well in the guidelines doc when
he commented "All the IETF can expect regarding a pending patent is disclosure
that it exists, the related IETF documents, and possibly the relevant
IETF document sections and some statement about licensing terms."

> 
> 3)
> 
> Folks already brought up my worry about the uselessness with third party
> disclosures.
> 

[vsee] We did write this as a "first party" disclosure form, rather than
one to be used for either first party or third party disclosures. I agree
with others who've commented on this in that I think it would be better 
to have a separate form for third party disclosures (in a different I-D), 
should a form be useful for that purpose.

> 
> 4)
> 
> Editorial nit:
>
>    II. Patent HolderÆs Contact for License Application
>
> ==> replace the non-ascii char.

[vsee] thank you! (sorry it slipped through).

thanks,
-- Val See (and the rest of the template authors)

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 22:21:33 +0300 (EEST)

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Valerie See wrote:
> just to clarify what is going on: 

A clarification is definitely required, but whether that's enough is a 
different thing..

> this form is a mechanism to address two

The two most important functions of the IETF IPR policy are to:

1) make people disclose any IPR they know of that relates to their IETF 
contributions, and

2) get licensing terms of such IPR.

These seem to be typically bundled in one, these days.

IMHO, the most important function is 1), because that's the superset of 
2).  You fulfill your obligations by just doing 2).  Getting 1) done is 
also difficult.

So, I believe that making a template for only 2) [or a subset, the
standards track documents] is not all useful.

Btw, if you look at ipr-technology-rights-05, sections 3 C and 6.5 in 
particular, there is *no* restriction of licensing terms to standards 
track documents.

IMO, this seems to indicate that technology-rights is not clear enough 
yet, if there are misunderstandings like this..

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

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---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 16:45:07 -0400 (EDT)

> particular, there is *no* restriction of licensing terms to standards 

that is correct - there are no such limits in the IETF

Scott

---

From: "Robert Barr " <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:35:31 -0700

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Bradner [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 1:45 PM
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; 
> [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: disclosure template
> 
> 

Then 3c is a change from 2026, not a clarification