Subject: Comment on IPR Statements from Diversinet

From: Mike StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 07:09:31 -0500

Olafur asked me to post a brief summary of my comments related to the IPR 
filings by Diversinet - #s 548 and 549 that I made at the DNSEXT WG session 
at the last IETF.

Without any comment on the merits of the IPR claims, I noted that I 
believed the language of the IPR disclosure with respect to terms would be 
unlikely to be widely acceptable.  Specifically, the IPR disclosure terms 
include the following language:

would include a requirement that

any organization using  the technology covered by our patent would have to

disclose prescribed language indicating that the licensee's service or product

incorporates intellectual property owned by Diversinet, and that such

organization would agree to be referenceable  by Diversinet in any publicity

regarding Diversinet's patent portfolio."
The "any organization using" is overly broad and could be read to include 
anyone running a DNS product which includes the technology.  This is just 
worded badly.

The "referencable by Diversinet..." also seems over-reaching, and unlikely 
to be agreed to by many if any organization wanting to incorporate this.  I 
did a *brief* review of other IPR disclosures and this requirement appears 
unique among the disclosures I reviewed.

My personal preference would be something on the order of the Nokia terms 
in their disclosure #545:

>Regarding this internet draft "IMAP Extension for CHECKPOINT Synchronization",
>draft-wener-lemonade-checkpoint-01.txt, to the extent this draft is included
>into final IETF standard specification, Nokia agrees not to assert those 
>claims
>in Nokia patents that apply to this submission and are technically 
>necessary to
>implement the IETF standard spesification against any other party in 
>respect of
>its implementation of the specification, provided that the party relying 
>on thiscommitment does not assert its patents against Nokia.

In interests of full disclosure (pun intended) - I'm an author of one of 
the drafts on which Diversinet filed the IPR notice.

Mike

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:36:25 +0000

diversinet's requirements are untenable for an internet standard.

nokia's requirements are untenable for open source software, which
makes them untenable for an internet standard.

back to the drawing board, i guess.

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