Subject: Resolution: A suggested additional item in IPR disclosure pages (fwd)

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 14:31:56 +0100

On October 26, I requested feedback from the IPR WG on the form addition 
suggested below.

Only Scott Bradner answered, and did not object, but suggested that "on a 
royalty-free basis" be removed.

I got no other feedback from the IPR WG on the question; I take this as 
permission to go ahead and modify the form in a way that I and the 
secretariat find reasonable.

The following text will go into both templates next to a checkbox
(in section IV of the generic template, section VI of the specific 
template; in both cases placed below the text box):

[ ] The individual submitting this template represents and warrants that all
   other terms and conditions that must be satisfied for implementers of an
   IETF specification to obtain a license have been
   disclosed in this IPR disclosure statement.

The following NOTE will be placed on the Generic page only, below section IV

NOTE: According to RFC 3668 section 6.4.3, unless you check the box above, 
and choose either option a) or b), you must still file specific IPR 
disclosures as appropriate.

Since this increases the need for specifying licensing terms in the form, 
I'll also instruct the secretariat to add Brian's option d) to the form 
both for specific and generic disclosures:

d) | | See text box below for licensing declaration.

(renumbering options d and e to be e and f, respectively)

and change the title of the text box from "Comments, notes or URL for 
further information" to "Licensing information, comments, notes or URL for 
further information".

Thank you.

                   Harald

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: 26. oktober 2004 12:10 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: A suggested additional item in IPR disclosure pages

Hi,
now that the web-form disclosure pages are operational, I'd like to solicit
the thoughts of people on the WG mailing list on a possible addition.

In RFC 3668 section 6.4.3, the following language occurs:

>    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 any other terms
>    and conditions are disclosed in the IPR disclosure statement.

The term "any other terms and conditions are disclosed" seems like a nice
thing to know under any circumstance, both for generic and specific IPR
disclosures. So the suggestion came up to add a checkbox to the template,
with the following accompanying text:

> "The individual submitting this template represents and warrants that all
> other terms and conditions that must be satisfied for implementers of an
> IETF specification to obtain a license on a royalty-free basis have been
> disclosed in this IPR disclosure statement

This should go into the generic template, since 3668 explicitly says that
the IETF treats disclosures for which this is true different from
disclosures for which it is not. But I also think it would be good to put
it into the specific template - to allow people to get around the FUD
generated by someone saying "but we don't know what OTHER terms might be
imposed upon us when we ask for a license" in the case where the IPR holder
REALLY wants things to be simple.

Makes sense?

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

---------- End Forwarded Message ----------

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

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 15:27:11 +0100

>   disclosed in this IPR disclosure statement.

I would have replied sooner, but it got buried.  Sorry.

The original 3668 text is

   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 any other terms and
   conditions are disclosed in the IPR disclosure statement.

I believe the intention of "all" is for an IPR holder to issue a single
disclosure statement covering all of its IPR -- and thus royalty-free is
required.  However, 

  - that sense, of a blanket statement, feels lost in the proposed text.

  - the context for "other" is lost as well.  I believe "other" meant
    "terms other than royalty-free, which should also be mentioned".

This disclosure template includes everything, even the royalty-free
statement.  "Other" is not appropriate.

How about something like (caps are just to point out changes - remove
later): 

 [ ] The individual submitting this template represents and warrants that ALL 
   terms and conditions that must be satisfied for implementers of
   ANY covered IETF specification to obtain a license have been
   disclosed in this IPR disclosure statement.

The rest is fine.

Thanks ... Scott (B)

---

From: "Larry J. Blunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:23:07 -0500

I would suggest that if options b) or c) are selected, the comments
field must be used to list the license terms or contain a URL referencing
the license.   I would go further and suggest removing the "Reasonable
and Non-Discriminatory" terminology from the template as it's definition
is entirely subjective.   As an engineering organization, it seems to me
if we are unwilling to define particular terminology, it should not appear
in our documents.

   -Larry Blunk

On Tuesday 07 December 2004 08:31, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> [ ] The individual submitting this template represents and warrants that
> all other terms and conditions that must be satisfied for implementers of
> an IETF specification to obtain a license have been

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 16:55:00 +0100

Larry J. Blunk wrote:
> ... I would go further and suggest removing the "Reasonable
> is entirely subjective.   

Not a chance. It's a term of art and is the main reason many corporate
IPR departments are able to use the template in the first place.

I think the modifications announced by Harald are fine.

    Brian

---

From: "Larry J. Blunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 11:13:41 -0500

> I think the modifications announced by Harald are fine.

  I'm afraid I don't understand.   If they are willing to license to
"All Implementers", wouldn't that make it a public license?  Why is
it unreasonable to request a link to the license?  Further, if they
are unwilling to provide a link to the license, they can still use the
form and select options d) or e).    The point I am making is there
is little to no value in claiming you will license under RAND terms
without the actual license available for people to make their own
decision about whether or not the terms should cause concern.

 -Larry

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:52:56 +0100

--On tirsdag, desember 07, 2004 15:27:11 +0100 Scott W Brim 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> ALL     terms and conditions that must be satisfied for implementers of

I'll take that as a friendly grammar correction. Barbara, please use this 
text instead of the one I wrote.

                            Harald

---

From: "Robert Barr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:57:20 -0800

I'd like to see the form as it will look w this proposed change. It should
be consistent w 3668.  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Harald Tveit Alvestrand
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 11:53 PM
> To: Scott W Brim
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Resolution: A suggested additional item in IPR 
> disclosure pages (fwd)
> 
> 
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:22:16 -0800

At 11:13 AM -0500 12/7/04, Larry J. Blunk wrote:
>"All Implementers", wouldn't that make it a public license?

Definitely not.

>   Why is
>it unreasonable to request a link to the license?

Because it might be proprietary.

A simple example:

- Company A and Company B have a private cross-licensing agreement 
for many things. That agreement talks about terms for future 
licensing agreements.

- Company B gets a patent for Technology Y, which is being considered 
in the IETF, and offers a RAND license for Technology Y to anyone.

- Company B's specific license to Company C for Technology Y might be 
radically different than the one to Company A because the earlier 
agreement with Company A.

As long as both Company A and Company C can get licenses in a 
non-discriminatory fashion, it is of no value to the IETF to say 
"both licenses have to be the same". In fact, it is extremely 
detrimental to do so. Company B may be contractually prohibited from 
giving the same license terms to Company A and Company C, even though 
it is giving them both licenses to Technology Y.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:37:10 -0800

So if, for example, Intel and Microsoft have a confidential cross-license
agreement for patented technology relating to an IETF standard, those two
companies can discriminate against the rest of the world when offering RAND
patent licenses. 

And that's non-discriminatory because????

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, technology law offices (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482 
707-485-1242 * fax: 707-485-1243 
email: [email-masked] 

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
> Of Paul Hoffman / VPNC
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 10:22 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Resolution: A suggested additional item in IPR disclosure
> pages (fwd)
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:52:48 -0800

>companies can discriminate against the rest of the world when offering RAND

Um, no. How could they offer an RA*ND* license that discriminates?

If Intel and Microsoft have a confidential cross-licence agreement 
called "N" for some technologies, and Intel decides to offer a RAND 
license called "J" to the rest of the world for one of those 
technologies or a different technology, J is still a RAND license. 
Intel's offer of J to the world might change N, it might cause a 
supplement to N, and so on. But Intel doesn't have to offer J to 
Microsoft.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:47:43 -0800

> supplement to N, and so on. But Intel doesn't have to offer J to

How about offering "N" to the rest of us?

A royalty-free reciprocal patent license for claims necessary to practice
the standard accomplishes that.

/Larry 

Lawrence Rosen

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:19:54 -0800

>How about offering "N" to the rest of us?

Because, in this hypothetical, the rest of us don't have anything to 
offer Intel nearly as valuable as what Microsoft did. That's why N is 
worded the way it is, and J is worded differently (and, obviously, 
much more narrowly).

(Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something here. I can't tell if you 
are misunderstanding the given real-world scenario or just wishing 
the world was different and nicer.)

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:16:53 +0100

Folks,

it is entirely reasonable to use the opportunity offered by a change to the 
IETF's IPR disclosure forms to take off on a tangent about how the world 
would be completely different if the world was made of green cheese.

But - in the interest of sanity - PLEASE CHANGE THE BLOODY SUBJECT LINE 
WHEN YOU DO SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                     Harald

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:19:02 -0800

> the world was different and nicer.)

I'm not trying to be Pollyanna here. Intel and Microsoft are free to
contract as they wish. But to describe what the rest of us poor blokes get
in such situations as "reasonable and non-discriminatory" simply because
Microsoft has a more "valuable" set of goodies to offer Intel -- that's not
right. And it shouldn't be RAND either. If Microsoft gets Intel's patented
technology for free in a broad cross-license between big patent holders, and
Microsoft's competitors (and everyone else) get a RAND license for (say)
$10.00/unit royalties.... Is that reasonable? Non-discriminatory? Fair?

But we've not actually been asked to answer these questions today. This is
NOT the motion on the table. Let's please get back to IETF's policy for
industry standards intended for implementation by everyone. The only thing
we're asked is whether to include the words "ALL" and "ANY" in the IETF IPR
disclosure template. That's an issue of disclosure, not of licensing. 

We can decide much later, when specific license terms and conditions are
actually on the table before us, whether they are fair or acceptable
regardless of whether they are denominated RAND or Open Standards licenses. 

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 

> From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 1:20 PM
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Resolution: A suggested additional item in IPR disclosure
> pages (fwd)
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:53:02 -0800

At 2:19 PM -0800 12/8/04, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
>right.

It seems like the first and third sentences conflict.

In the world you describe, if Intel has other legal obligations to 
Microsoft that change the license that Microsoft gets for this new 
technology, Intel has two options:

a) Give no one a license

b) Give everyone the same licence Microsoft originally got, even 
though everyone else is offering Intel much less in return

Choice (a) is what is easiest for Intel to do. Choice (b) is absurd 
and would get any CEO fired by any reasonable board of directors.

Further, in some cases, choice (b) could lead to crazy results. If 
Intel has made contract L1, using one set of rules with Microsoft, 
and contract L2 with an obviously different set of rules with Sun, 
any the issue of the RAND license comes up in your scenario, which 
one do the rest of us get: L1 or L2? Given the size of Intel, 
Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, Juniper, and so on, it is completely safe to 
assume that each of them has more than one license that might be 
compared (in your world) to the new one.

By setting up things the way you want, you are simply pushing any 
sensible company to (a). That would be ruinous for the Internet. It 
might be more "right" or "fair" or something, but for those of us who 
grapple with other people's patents as we try to help the Internet by 
creating new protocols, it would be a disaster.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:32:42 -0800

Paul Hoffman wrote:
> Intel has two options:

I respectfully disagree. Under b) everyone else would be giving Intel two
great benefits it otherwise wouldn't have:

   1. The blessing on the standard itself, under which Intel presumably
      will be developing and selling profitable products to a world-wide
      customer base in a technology arena where it has special expertise.

   2. A reciprocal license to any of Intel's licensees' own patents 
      necessary to practice the standard, thus protecting the standard 
      for Intel and everyone else.

This choice is not "absurd." It is actually the norm for the Internet. Many
patent licenses for IETF standards are already, in practice, royalty-free
and reciprocal. CEOs and boards of directors are happy to give things away
if the benefits that redound are greater than the cost.

Patent licenses that conform to the Open Standards Principles can bring
valuable benefits to the companies that offer them, and to their customers.

P.S. I notice that Intel and Microsoft are being unusually quiet during this
discussion. Perhaps they could be encouraged to tell us whether they think
either of us has analyzed this wrong....  :-)

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 

> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 2:53 PM

---

From: Russell McOrmond <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:43:23 -0500 (EST)

> supplement to N, and so on. But Intel doesn't have to offer J to 

   If Intel refuses J to Microsoft, then it is obviously not RAND if it
discriminates against Microsoft in any way.

  I am also not sure why RAND is being discussed in the context of IETF
which predominantly deals with information processing (software) where
RAND that includes any per-unit royalty or per-unit obligation is by
definition discriminatory against Free/Libre and Open Source Software and
businesses which don't support the concept of "per-unit" software.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Have you, your family, your friends (, your enemies) signed the
 Petition to the Canadian Parliament for Users' Rights in Copyright?
 http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:14:59 -0800

The license Cisco generally offers (look at our IPR postings, especially 
the recent ones, which make it more clear) are of the form:

  - We don't want to be sued. Hanging around in court is a waste of time and
    money. We're told that there are companies that sue other companies, 
either
    as a profit center or as a competitive tactic. We've even met a few. In
    court.
  - We're very willing for everyone else to use our IETF-related IPR
    royalty-free if they don't sue us.
  - If you sue us, for any reason, the license is void; we now talk, and
    it's probably a very expensive discussion involving lawyers, courts,
    depositions, airplane travel, and a LOT of time. In the end, you get to 
pay
    or trade something of yours for the privilege of using our IPR that
    everyone else is using for free.

The way a lawyer says that requires a lot more words. Believe me, it's what 
the words they use mean. Example of such: 
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/cisco-ipr-draft-ietf-tcpm-tcpsecure.txt

What we find interesting is the number of folks who have no intent to sue 
us whatsoever that take exception to this. The open source folks, for 
example, routinely call our IPR folks and give them a tremendously hard 
time over IPR that (since they are VERY unlikely to ever even THINK of 
suing Cisco) is absolutely free for them to use. Most recently tcpm simply 
couldn't get around the notion that Cisco gets sued a lot and builds IPR as 
a means of fending such off, the alternative being to pay large sums of 
cash in places where we don't think we even infringe.

Someday I'll figure out why people look a gift horse in the mouth and tell 
it that it must also recuse itself from the right to defend itself when 
kicked. Now, *that* gets in the way of people giving away IPR...

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:57:20 -0800

> kicked. Now, *that* gets in the way of people giving away IPR...

I don't know who you're talking about, but I'm an open source person who has
never once threatened to sue Cisco about its IPR statements. Your lawyers
are friends of mine. I don't treat you like a gift horse and I don't resent
one bit your efforts to protect yourselves from patent lawsuits. I've even,
on occasion, helped explain to some open source folks why all those words
that your lawyers use are sometimes quite good for open source -- and
sometimes not quite good enough. See, for example, my discussion of Cisco's
patent statement starting on page 304 of my book, "Open Source Licensing:
Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" (Prentice Hall 2004).

As far as I can tell, Cisco is officially on the "correct" side of the
issues we've been discussing today, although I sometimes wish your lawyers
would say it better in their licensing statements. 

[Hi Robert. I hope you're listening. :-)  ]

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 

> From: Fred Baker [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:15 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: 'Paul Hoffman / VPNC'; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: FORKED SUBJECT: Microsoft/Intel cross-licenses and RAND
>

---

From: "Robert Barr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:17:05 -0800

Yes Larry, you have never threatened cisco, but Fred is correct, we have
received some very unfriendly messages, mostly around VRRP and TCP Secure
and NEMO.  
that's why they call me 
The Man in The Redundancy Detector Van  

> From: Lawrence Rosen [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:57 PM
> To: 'Fred Baker'
> Cc: 'Paul Hoffman / VPNC'; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: FORKED SUBJECT: Microsoft/Intel cross-licenses and RAND
> 
> Fred Baker wrote:
> > couldn't get around the notion that Cisco gets sued a lot 
> and builds IPR
> > as
> >   - We don't want to be sued. Hanging around in court is a 
> waste of time
> > and
> >     as a profit center or as a competitive tactic. We've 
> even met a few.
> > In
> >     court.
> >     depositions, airplane travel, and a LOT of time. In the 
> end, you get
> > to
> > pay
> > The way a lawyer says that requires a lot more words. 
> Believe me, it's
> > what
> > couldn't get around the notion that Cisco gets sued a lot 
> and builds IPR
> > as

---

From: Paul Hoffman / VPNC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:13:25 -0800

>       for Intel and everyone else.

You make the very-mistaken assumption that Company A gets a patent on 
Technology Y so it can use Y in a protocol. That is true only some of 
the time. Often, Company A gets the patent to build up a defensive 
portfolio (as Fred tried to explain). Sometimes, Company A applies 
for the patent, moves into a very different business, and receives 
the patent anyway; now they have an asset unrelated to what they are 
working on.

>This choice is not "absurd." It is actually the norm for the Internet.

Nope, sorry. There is no norm for the Internet. Some folks want 
patents so they can avoid being sued; some folks want patents so they 
can reduce their current licensing fees; some folks want patents so 
they can threaten others and make money without producing anything. 
The third seems more common than the first two, but that is possibly 
only because of publicity and press.

>  Many

Yes, of course. But that's not what you proposed. You proposed 
*forcing* a company to use the same terms for all licenses as they 
got for one license. See the difference?

>valuable benefits to the companies that offer them, and to their customers.

...to *some* companies that offer them. They bring fewer benefits to 
others, which is why the others often don't do what you want, and why 
we are having this discussion.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 23:14:06 +0200 (EET)

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Fred Baker wrote:
> The license Cisco generally offers (look at our IPR postings, especially the 
> recent ones, which make it more clear) are of the form:
>
>   depositions, airplane travel, and a LOT of time. In the end, you get to pay

Note that this is very problematic at least in theory, even if not 
with the current policies and executives of Cisco.

That is, this allows Cisco to steal anyone's non-IETF technology, 
without paying, and "daring them" to use the typically-reasonable 
defense clauses.

To take an example, Cisco might just use vendor X's technology that 
vendor X will not want to license (and is not offering as RAND).  The 
only recourse vendor X would is to sue Cisco.  But that makes vendor 
X's use of Cisco's IETF technologies at stake.

To make an analogy, Cisco allows you to "borrow the car", at any time 
in the future reserves the right to ask you to borrow your underwear. 
And when you don't want to give the underwear, you will get into a 
very expensive mess.

The fix?  The defensive clauses must be symmetric, e.g., only apply to 
being sued on IETF technologies, or you would have to give out also 
non-IETF technologies.

-- 
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: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:47:53 -0800

>being sued on IETF technologies, or you would have to give out also 

That is not implied in what I said, and BTW I don't speak for Cisco (that's 
rbarr's job), but I think Cisco won't slap me around TOO much if I say that 
this is very much what is in Cisco's collective mind.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:13:15 +0200 (EET)

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Pekka Savola wrote:
> To make an analogy, Cisco allows you to "borrow the car", at any time in the 
> future reserves the right to ask you to borrow your underwear. And when you 
> don't want to give the underwear, you will get into a very expensive mess.

Bill Sommerfeld provided a bit more intuitive analogy -- borrowing 
your house/bed/dog/cat/spouse instead of underwear.  I just wanted to 
use something very personal which is very personal and which you might 
have very good reasons to not borrow, even if someone has borrowed the 
car...

---

From: "Robert Barr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:46:40 -0800

There is an old saying: "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of
your own"
rbarr sez: "If you don't like Cisco's policy, go out and make your own. "
Cisco will happily comply with any official (RFC) IETF IPR policy, including
W3C style IPR policy, which we support. 

perhaps it would  be more productive to work on a new IETF IPR policy rather
than criticizing our policy, which is in compliance with rfc3668 and is not
based on collecting royalties fro IETF standards, which is also in
compliance with rfc3668.

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Fred Baker
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 1:48 PM
> To: Pekka Savola
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: asymmetric defensive patents [Re: FORKED 
> SUBJECT: Microsoft/Intel cross-licenses and RAND]
>

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:46:23 -0800

Robert Barr wrote:
> Cisco will happily comply with any official (RFC) IETF IPR policy,
> including W3C style IPR policy, which we support.

I'm really pleased to hear Cisco say that publicly, after having long
reassured me of that in private. Thanks Robert.

The Open Standards Principles were intended to describe (in abbreviated
fashion on one five-bullet slide) licenses that would also be acceptable
under the W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy, which the open source community
publicly supports. Two differences have already been noted: (1) The Open
Standards Principles require sublicensing, which became a hot topic recently
on the IETF MARID WG discussion list and at the FTC; and (2) the defensive
termination provision for patent infringement lawsuits is subtly narrower
than the W3C policy, as has already been noted today on this list. 

I look forward to further discussion about these and other points as we all
work toward some consensus.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 

> From: Robert Barr [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 2:47 PM
> To: 'Fred Baker'; 'Pekka Savola'
> Subject: RE: asymmetric defensive patents [Re: FORKED SUBJECT:
> Microsoft/Intel cross-licenses and RAND]
>

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:01:34 +0100

I'll repeat a suggestion I've been harping on for a couple of years now....

Get an I-D written that describes licensing terms acceptable to the open 
source community (getting over the "we don't know what the open source 
community wants" hurdle).

Then get some people to LICENSE IPR under those terms (getting over the 
"nobody would use licensing terms like that" hurdle).

Running code. THEN come and ask for rough consensus.

We've tried them in the other order, and we got to exactly where we are 
today.

                   Harald

--On mandag, desember 13, 2004 15:46:23 -0800 Lawrence Rosen 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Standards Principles require sublicensing, which became a hot topic
> recently on the IETF MARID WG discussion list and at the FTC; and (2) the
> defensive termination provision for patent infringement lawsuits is
> subtly narrower than the W3C policy, as has already been noted today on
> this list.
>
> I look forward to further discussion about these and other points as we
> all work toward some consensus.
>
> /Larry
>
> Lawrence Rosen