Subject: RE: royalty-free blanket statements and reasonable terms

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:29:12 -0400 (EDT)

> Since royalty-free is a requirement for a blanket statement, may not make
> too much of a difference, but one of the problems with blanket statements is
> that with the presence of a blanket statement, a company may feel they have
> satisfied all IPR requirements, and may not disclose IPR pertinent in a
> specific group. 

what I said in response to a simular comment last week
  I think it's pointless, silly and counterproductive to ask someone
  who has made a clear stament that they will give away any and all IPR
  to then spend the time and effort to detail where the IPR they will
  give away impacts IETF work.  It seems to me that this would be a
  good way to discourage people from giving away the IPR.
  
  If they agree to give it away, there is no related IPR issue for the
  working group  to deal with (at least from this IPR owner) so why 
  is there a need to ask them to do the work?

Scott

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From: "Elizabeth G. Rodriguez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:23:39 -0700

Since royalty-free is a requirement for a blanket statement, may not make
too much of a difference, but one of the problems with blanket statements is
that with the presence of a blanket statement, a company may feel they have
satisfied all IPR requirements, and may not disclose IPR pertinent in a
specific group.  Thus, a corporate implementer could infringe on IPR covered
by the blanket statement without obtaining a royalty free license.  Is this
a problem?

Also, what about if the discloser changes their mind some time in the future
for some new specific IPR -- how would exceptions or revocation of blanket
statements be handled?

Elizabeth Rodriguez
-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Scott Bradner
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 7:45 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: royalty-free blanket statements and reasonable terms

reworded like this for example
   However, the requirement for an IPR disclosure is satisfied by a blanket
   statement of the IPR discloser's willingness to license all of its
   potential IPR meeting the requirements of Section 6.6 (and either Section
   6.1.1 or 6.1.2) to implementers of an IETF specification on a
royalty-free
   basis as long as such a license would not require interactions with
   individual implementers or users of the IPR.

Scott

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From: Daniel Weitzner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 11:57:25 -0400

From the W3C patent policy experience I can report that just as the 
term 'reasonable and non-discriminatory' is often frustratingly vague, 
so is the term 'royalty-free'. Whether or not it is sufficient for the 
IETF purposes to leave it undefined I can't say, but in the W3C context 
we found both that it was necessary to define it more carefully. In many 
cases a promise of  'no fee' did not provide adequate certainty for the 
standardization process to proceed. Our policy contains a definition 
that we worked on a fair amount.[1]

For example, a 'no fee' or 'royalty-free' license that is conditioned on 
a requirement that the implementor use some other technology that the 
patentee is trying to promote, for example, would not achieve that 
desired results w.r.t unencumbered technology. It is for this reason, 
that we have decided to refer to our license terms as 'W3C 
Royalty-Free', recognizing that when we say RF we mean something more 
specific by it than just 'no charge.'

YMMV.

Danny

links:
[1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20030520.html#def-RF

Scott Bradner wrote:

>    6.1.1 or 6.1.2) to implementers of an IETF specification on a royalty-free

-- 
Daniel J. Weitzner                              +1.617.253.8036 (MIT)
World Wide Web Consortium                       +1.202.364.4750 (DC)
Technology & Society Domain Leader              <[email-masked]>
http://www.w3.org/People/Weitzner.html

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From: "Lawrence E. Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 12:51:03 -0700

> > Since royalty-free is a requirement for a blanket 
> statement, may not 
> > make too much of a difference, but one of the problems with blanket 
> > statements is that with the presence of a blanket 
> statement, a company 
> > may feel they have satisfied all IPR requirements, and may not 
> > disclose IPR pertinent in a specific group.
> 

>   is there a need to ask them to do the work?

FWIW, I agree with Scott about the process.  But what does the phrase
"give it away" mean?  What does the phrase "a clear statement" mean?  

/Larry Rosen