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

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:18:13 -0400 (EDT)

if we were to put a version of the W3C RFC definiition on as an
appendix it might look like this

Appendix A. Royalty-Free Licensing
   The following description of what constitutes royality-free licensing
   has been adapted from the W3C.

   With respect to a Recommendation developed under this policy, a
   Royalty-Free license shall mean a non-assignable, non-sublicensable
   license to make, have made, use, sell, have sold, offer to sell,
   import, and distribute and dispose of implementations of the
   Recommendation that:

   1. shall be available to all, worldwide;

   2. shall extend to all IPR that Covers technology in a specified IETF
      Document owned or controlled by the licensor;

   3. may be limited to implementations of the IETF of the technology in
      the specified IETF Document, and to what is required by the
      specified IETF Document;

   4. may be conditioned on a grant of a reciprocal RF license (as
      defined in this appendix) to all IPR that Covers technology in a
      specified IETF Document owned or controlled by the licensee. A
      reciprocal license may be required to be available to all, and a
      reciprocal license may itself be conditioned on a further
      reciprocal license from all.

   5. may not be conditioned on payment of royalties, fees or other   
      consideration;

   6. may be suspended with respect to any licensee when licensor is
      sued by licensee for infringement of claims essential to implement
      the technology in any IETF Document; 

   7. may not impose any further conditions or restrictions on the use  
      of any technology, intellectual property rights, or other
      restrictions on behavior of the licensee, but may include
      reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance  
      of the license relationship such as the following: choice of law
      and dispute resolution; 

   8. shall not be considered accepted by an implementer who manifests
      an intent not to accept the terms of a Royalty-Free license as  
      offered by the licensor.

   License term:

   9. The RF license conforming to the requirements in this policy shall
      be for the life of the patents in question.

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:54:18 -0700

I think (speaking as a process guardian only) that recommending such a 
definition (which adding it as an appendix would essentially do) is not 
appropriate as a change to the document after it has passed through IETF 
Last Call.

Following on the pattern of "-template" and "-lastcall", a better way 
forward to get this documented and/or recommended might be to create a 
separate document called "considerations for an acceptable RF license", or 
something like that.

Nit: There's a grammar error in bullet 3 (superfluous "of the IETF"), and 
the first sentence of bullet 4 seems to say that an IETF document can be 
controlled by the licensee - unlikely to be the right interpretation.

                  Harald