Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 09:54:07 +0200

>    The existence and the pointer to the IPR claims or an indication of
>    non-existence of knowledge of such claims must be mentioned in all
>    IETF last calls and should be mentioned in working group last calls.

I think this is a reasonable idea, but I think we should first test
it by suggesting that the IESG does it as an operational procedure for
a year, and then decide whether to incorporate it formally in a BCP.

> 
>    Additionally, all documents for which a last call prior to the
>    publication was not required and IPR claims are known, must now be
>    either last-called or rejected.

I don't think this is reasonable in practice. In principle it may
appear to inhibit the surfacing of submarine patents, but in practice
I believe it will simply force the submarines further under water.

(Needless to say, if a document is recycled at Proposed, or promoted
to Draft or Standard, there will be a last call anyway.)

   Brian

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 12:13:12 +0300 (EEST)

> a year, and then decide whether to incorporate it formally in a BCP.

I'd be OK with this kind of approach, but I don't go how to proceed 
operationally.

> I believe it will simply force the submarines further under water.

This will be re-edited to say that documents for which IETF do not have 
change control do not need to be last-called ("proprietary protocols/other 
SDO publications"), but the rest will have to be.

Would this seem more reasonable?

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

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 09:38:20 -0400

>a year, and then decide whether to incorporate it formally in a BCP.

The IESG is likely to follow the advice of this group on such things.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 08:43:43 +0300 (EEST)

> The IESG is likely to follow the advice of this group on such things.

Good.  Of course, if the support for a proposal doesn't seem to be 
unanimous, it might be difficult to judge the validity of the advice.

I think the best course might be to try to revise the draft a few times, 
until folks are happy with it and then see if that qualifies for "advice"; 
if so, freeze it for some time, until operational experience is gained 
using it.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 08:31:07 +0200

> On Sun, 4 May 2003, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
...
> Would this seem more reasonable?

I still don't think it works. If a patent shows up late, for a Proposed
Standard that is widely deployed, what good is a last call going to do?
And if a patent holder has decided to deliberately conceal a patent as
long as possible, the threat of a last call will just make them conceal
it even longer. 

What we could consider is having a message sent to IETF-Announce when such a
"late" disclosure is received by the Secretariat. But even that has a downside;
it acts as free advertising for the patent-holder.

   Brian

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 09:39:20 +0300 (EEST)

> long as possible, the threat of a last call will just make them conceal

I don't think the patent holder would disclose the patent until it's
approaved (or published) in *any* case, if it has the choice.  Why would
it want to?  The WG might more easily still change its course.  After
approval/publication, it's less likely to do so.

So, I'm mostly concerned about patents by WG participants, and the WG's or 
individuals not giving enough weight to problems caused by IPR for some 
folks, or all the folks being represented properly in the WG making the 
IPR decisions.
 
> it acts as free advertising for the patent-holder.

I'm not sure IETF-announce is a proper medium for that.. but certainly, 
there should be some list where new IPR disclosures that have been 
filed in the repository are mentioned.  That should make it easier to 
notice when folks file IPR disclosures.

And actually, I'm not really sure of the marketing value.  But it's good
that some think it has some.  I think it's really only bad press, but
YMMV.

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 04:29:14 -0700 (PDT)

Just a couple of comments here...

Spencer

> folks, or all the folks being represented properly in the WG

I think one of the frequent missteps we make in these
discussions is being confused about whether our patent policy
covers mostly "good-faith participants" or "evil participants"
as well.

I think we're more likely to be successful if we're asking
good-faith participants to help us make good decisions. As has
already been observed here, if you want to "game" the process,
there are just too many places to hide - a sponsoring
organization can chinese-wall between their IPR and standards
participants, or hire a consulting firm to push a technology
that the sponsoring organization has an interest in, but the
consulting firm does not, or ... or just keep the submarine down
a little longer.

> notice when folks file IPR disclosures.

My impression is that the number of IPR claim disclosures we've
been receiving has been low but rising at a fair rate. I'd
definitely like help in noticing when IPR claims are disclosed
(what worked with a small number of disclosures will need
scaling help).

If the list postings say "and these are the documents affected",
we can judge how late disclosures are for ourselves...
_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg