Guidelines for Working Groups on Intellectual Property Issues
draft-ietf-ipr-wg-guidelines-05

Note: This ballot was opened for revision 05 and is now closed.

(Allison Mankin; former steering group member) Yes

(Bill Fenner; former steering group member) Yes

(Harald Alvestrand; former steering group member) Yes

(Jon Peterson; former steering group member) Yes

(Ned Freed; former steering group member) Yes

(Alex Zinin; former steering group member) No Objection

(Bert Wijnen; former steering group member) No Objection

(Margaret Cullen; former steering group member) No Objection

(Randy Bush; former steering group member) No Objection

(Russ Housley; former steering group member) (was Discuss) No Objection

  draft-ietf-ipr-submission-rights-08:
  
    In section 1, the definition of "Reasonably and personally known"
    starts with a description, but then moves into a "requirement."  
    Requirements should not be embedded in definitions.

  draft-ietf-ipr-technology-rights-12:

    In section 1, the definition of "Reasonably and personally known"
    starts with a description, but then moves into a "requirement."  
    Requirements should not be embedded in definitions.

  draft-ietf-ipr-wg-guidelines-05:

    Section 4.3 says: "In the mid-90s, the basic principles of public
    key infrastructure had been patented for years."  This is not
    quite right.  All digital signature algorithms were covered by
    patents, and a digital signature algorithm is needed to implement
    PKI.  In sections 4.1 and 4.2, the patented technology is named.
    Why not name RSA here?

(Ted Hardie; former steering group member) No Objection

(Thomas Narten; former steering group member) Abstain

Overall, these documents are good. But I have once concern: In technology-rights:

> 6.4.3  The requirement for an IPR disclosure is not satisfied by the
>    submission of a blanket statement of possible IPR on every
>    Contribution.  This is the case because the aim of the disclosure
>    requirement is to provide information about specific IPR against
>    specific technology under discussion in the IETF.  The requirement is
>    also not satisfied by a blanket statement of willingness to license
>    all potential IPR under fair and non-discriminatory terms for the
>    same reason.  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 am rather uncomfortable with the last sentence. It says that one
does not need to disclose specific IPR if one has indicated intent to
license royalty-free. But the royalty-free intent can have caveats
attached to it. If the community were to disagree with those terms
(e.g, they weren't considered RAND), there is no mechanism for
resolving the dispute. I.e., an IPR owner can say they are licensing
royalty free, and not disclose the IPR, but the impacted WGs may feel
that the terms are not acceptable and thus would want to have the
specific IPR disclosed. But by the above wording, such disclosures
wouldn't be required.

Note: I did bring this up with the WG but do not feel like the issue
was addressed sufficiently. Hence, I'm abstaining on the document set.

(Steven Bellovin; former steering group member) Recuse