Subject: RE: draft-josefsson-ipr-rules-update-00

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:32:24 -0400

On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 12:17:26PM -0400, Contreras, Jorge wrote:

>> Matt -- this would actually be an infringement of ISOC's copyrights as
>> well as its trademarks.  It would also probably subject you to claims of
>> unfair and deceptive trade practices under federal and state law.  In
>> general not a good idea.

>You can't copyright the phrase "RFC 2821". It's also unlikely that you 
>can use federal or state law against me, since I'm not located in the 
>US. But if you're already able to protect against knock-off standards 
>by virtue of trademark law, why do you need copyright law as well?

Matt - just to be clear, I'm speaking as the IETF's lawyer here.  It is
the position of the IETF that the RFC numbering series and layout of 
the RFC documents, as well as the wraparound text for the RFC documents,
are protected by copyright law.  Authors retain ownership of
copyright in all other aspects of the RFCs.  This position is supported by case
law in the U.S. and applies elsewhere by treaty.  This protection exists
by virtue of the law itself, and there is no need to seek any registration
or other form of protection in order to get protection.  
In this respect, copyright and trademark
work together to protect against the type of RFC knock-off that you're 
describing.  Is there something specific that you're opposed to
in the copyright policy that's currently under discussion?

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---

From: Matthew Garrett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:53:12 +0100

> in the copyright policy that's currently under discussion?

So, in other words: a copyright license that granted permission to make 
derivative works for any purpose *except* for

a) the wraparound text (except in the case of works intended for the 
IETF standards track process)
b) the IETF name
c) the term "RFC xxxx"

would not impair your ability to sue people producing knock-off 
standards? People have repeatedly raised this as a concern, but from 
what you're saying it seems it's the IETF's position that it wouldn't be 
a problem.

(As an example - I take RFC 2821, under a hypothetical liberal copyright 
license. I modify it so that the semantics of the "HELO" command differ 
in an incompatible way. Based on what you're saying, unless I'm granted 
explicit permission I can't call this "RFC 2821". This would seem to 
remove any significant chance of confusion between my modified standard 
and the IETF standard)
-- 
Matthew Garrett | [email-masked]