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Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology
draft-bradner-rfc3979bis-13

Yes

(Alia Atlas)

No Objection

(Alexey Melnikov)
(Deborah Brungard)
(Joel Jaeggli)
(Suresh Krishnan)
(Terry Manderson)

Note: This ballot was opened for revision 11 and is now closed.

Alia Atlas Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (for -12) Unknown

                            
Ben Campbell Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (2017-03-01 for -12) Unknown
-1, 2nd to last paragraph: I agree with others who do not like the plenary example. But on the flip side, how would we determine if a given presentation at plenary (or elsewhere) did not fall under the IPR rules? Do we expect the IESG to be able to waive "note well" for a presentation? Could they (or the chairs) also do that for an "FYI"  presentation to a working group?

-3.3. B: I don't understand how the "reasonably and personally known" clause applies here. How could make grants, acknowledgements, or agreements that he or she didn't know about? Are there missing words to the effect of "about IPR reasonably and personally known..."?

- 5.2.2, 2nd paragraph: Why are the timing concerns for disclosures under 5.1.2 different than for disclosures under 5.1.1?

- 5.4.2: Did I miss guidance about updates when a material change in a contribution causes an existing disclosure to no longer apply?

-7, last paragraph: "... it
   is reasonable that a working group or the IESG will take into account
   on their own views of the validity..." : Does that refer to the groups themselves, or the individuals that make them up? The idea that the IESG could have a group view on validity sounds perilously close to the idea of the IETF making a determination.
Jari Arkko Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (2017-03-02 for -12) Unknown
For your information, an error had crept into -12 when I was discussing
with the editors about the conclusions of the last call. I have asked
the "some evidence" text to be removed from 4(D) from the next
version.
Spencer Dawkins Former IESG member
Yes
Yes (2017-03-01 for -12) Unknown
I agree with Stephen's Discuss about calling out a loophole for plenary talks in this document. I'll watch that discussion.

The Introduction reproduces the principles from Section 10 in RFC 2026, but also points out that this document replaces that section, and doesn't say anything about what happens to the principles - are they carried forward unchanged, or something else? It would be helpful to clarify that.

I assume "Intetrnet-Drafts" is a typo.
Alexey Melnikov Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -12) Unknown

                            
Alissa Cooper Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (2017-03-01 for -12) Unknown
Re-sending as I failed to include one comment I had written up ...

= Section 1 =

(1)
"Such statements include oral statements, as well as written and
      electronic communications, which are addressed to:

      o the IETF plenary session,"

It's a little odd that this is in the singular, since there could potentially be multiple plenary sessions at a single meeting and certainly across meetings (or, at an all-virtual meeting in the future ...). In keeping with the rest of the bullets, might it make sense to say "any IETF plenary session"?

(2)
I think it would be good to be explicit about the fact that informational and experimental documents are included under the umbrella of the definitions. One way to do this would be to edit the definition of IETF Standards Process as follows:

s/such as the development and publication of informational documents./such as the development and publication of informational and experimental documents (see Section 4 of RFC 2026)./

= Section 5.4.2 =

"If such evidence is satisfactory to the Secretariat,
      after consultation with legal counsel, then the Secretariat will
      make the requested update."

Does "legal counsel" refer to the IETF's legal counsel, or to the Secretariat's own legal counsel, or is it meant to be ambiguous? I think it would be better if it weren't ambiguous.

= Section 5.8 =

"The IETF may make available a public facility (e.g., a web page and
   associated database) for the posting of IPR-related information and
   disclosures that do not conform to the requirements of Sections 5.1
   to 5.6 ("General Disclosures").  General Disclosures may include,
   among other things, "blanket disclosures" described in Section 5.4.3
   (other than blanket disclosures accompanied by royalty-free licensing
   commitments, as permitted by Section 5.4.3), ... General Disclosures do not satisfy an IETF
   Participant's obligation to make IPR disclosures as required by this
   policy."

I find this text a bit confusing, because it makes it sound like if the IETF does make available a public facility for posting General Disclosures, that facility should not be used to post blanket disclosures with royalty-free licensing terms. Is that right? How are participants supposed to post them then? Or are those kinds of disclosures being excluded from the definition of General Disclosures because of the last sentence only? I think it might be useful to separate the concepts of how disclosures get posted from whether they count as satisfying the requirements specified earlier.

Also, I think it would be helpful to add General Disclosures (and possibly blanket disclosures) to the list of definitions in Section 1.
Deborah Brungard Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -12) Unknown

                            
Joel Jaeggli Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -12) Unknown

                            
Kathleen Moriarty Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (2017-03-01 for -12) Unknown
I agree with Stephen's discuss and will follow along with Mirja's first comment as we have been ensuring that the notewell applied to repositories.
Mirja Kühlewind Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (2017-03-01 for -12) Unknown
1) Is it too early to consider contributions to repos that are not hosted by the IETF (github) as IETF contribution?

2) I would emphasize the last paragraph in section 7 ("It should be noted that the validity and enforceability ...") because a lot of people are not aware of that. Maybe at least put it in an own section?
Stephen Farrell Former IESG member
(was Discuss) No Objection
No Objection (2017-03-02 for -12) Unknown
(1) section 1: "For example, the presentations made by
invited speakers at IETF plenary sessions to discuss
advances in Internet technology generally, or to describe
their existing products or technologies, are not
Contributions." For saag presentations, (that are also
sometimes invited), we (sec ADs) have tended to consider
those as contributions, in the sense that we've asked
presenters to be specific about IPR and to make IPR
declarations if needed. I think the example in the
document is a bad one, don't recall it being discussed
(though it may have been on the IPR list) and would
prefer we not try to make a distinction between some
technical presentations and other technical presentations
at IETF meetings.  I'd say deleting the sentence is a
good enough change. If not, then I'd like to understand
how this affects invited presentations in area meetings
and other meetings (e.g. RGs) and what is expected of
folks chairing such or inviting the invitees.

- 5.5: We've had two recent cases of WGs that were
DoS'd by a declaration that said "will add license terms
later" but where the declaration was never updated and
the IPR holder went radio-silent. It was the same IPR
holder in both cases. The entity in question has
employees who participate frequently and have for an
extended period (so this is not a "new" entity by any
means). I would like if we could say that that's bad
form, but can we? If so, how? And would we need to
re-do LC for such an addition?
- section 1: I still don't think we have a good idea of
how to handle contributions via IM or con calls, since we
don't have a good way to tie a nickname or phone # to a
person, or to ensure that folks participating that way
get the right note-well like warnings. I'm not suggesting
a concrete change however (there's a pile of issues
there) but am just raising this in the hope that someone
remembers to figure it out before it bites us. 

- 5.4.1: This language is odd "In addition, if the IETF
Document	includes multiple parts and it is not
reasonably apparent which part	of such IETF Document is
alleged to be Covered by the IPR in	question, it is
helpful if the discloser identifies the sections of	the
IETF Document that are alleged to be so Covered." The
"multiple parts" threw me - I'd say simplify to say
that it's helpful to identify the relevant sections
of drafts.

- 5.4.1: draft-versions: what's the best thing to do, is
it to identify the version in which the covered
technology was first introduced or to identify the most
recent version in which the covered technology is (still)
present?
Suresh Krishnan Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -12) Unknown

                            
Terry Manderson Former IESG member
No Objection
No Objection (for -12) Unknown