Subject: RE: DRAFT Revision to the WG Document Writeup (about IPR)

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:49:13 -0400

--On Thursday, October 27, 2011 22:07 +0100 Adrian Farrel
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> There is no "requirement to have a discussion"
> 
> There is a requirement that the WG is aware of the IPR, and if
> there is a discussion then the IESG would like a pointer to it
> (actually, i would personally be happy with a précis). Is
> that hard?
> 
> You could argue that this is covered by "was there any
> discontent, blah, blah", but this is a specific issue we would
> like to call out in order to make sure it is not missed.

Adrian,

Your message seemed the best one to reply to in order to raise a
slightly different issue about IPR.  I understand and am
sympathetic with the reasons for the change and the desire of
the IESG to be informed about this.   I also like the
improvements in wording (both the IPR wording and Pete's
rewriting suggestion) that were discussed subsequent to your
message.  However, I want to be sure we don't find ourselves in
a situation a few other SDOs have encountered -- essentially
needing a lawyer in the room during all document and process
approval processes to be sure that inappropriate conversations
don't occur and/or organization-based rules about who can have
conversations with whom without specified others being present.

I hope the IESG will check this with Counsel (indeed, I hope
that has been done already), but I'm not sure you want either a
pointer or a précis.  Given our current IPR rules, it is
entirely reasonable and appropriate for the IESG to ask "is
there any declared IPR and, if there is, has the WG reviewed it
and reached conclusions consistent with processing this
document" (however that is phrased) and expect a "yes" or "no"
answer.  But, to the extent that examining the discussion might
lead the IESG to a conclusion that the discussion was not
adequate or, worse, that the WG reached the wrong conclusion,
you stray very close to the territory in which real
hair-splitting -- probably hair-splitting by lawyers-- will be
required to distinguish between evaluating the quality of the WG
discussion and evaluating the quality of the claims themselves.
You don't want to go anywhere near the latter and I fear that
some of this discussion sets things up for backing into it.

   john