IPR Working Group S. Brim
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems, Inc.
Expires: October 21, 2003 April 22, 2003
Guidelines for Working Groups on Intellectual Property Issues
draft-ietf-ipr-wg-guidelines-03
Status of this Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo lays out a conceptual framework and rules of thumb useful
for working groups dealing with IPR issues. It documents specific
examples of how IPR issues have been dealt with in the IETF.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. The Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1 PPP CCP and ECP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2 IPS WG (IP Storage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.3 PEM and PKI issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4 CDI WG (Content Distribution Internetworking) . . . . . . . 7
4.5 VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) . . . . . . . . . 7
4.6 Secure Shell (SecSH) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.7 IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1 Types of IPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2 When to think about IPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3 IPR as a Technology Evaluation Factor . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4 Patents versus Pending Patents Applied For . . . . . . . . . 11
5.5 Applicability: It's Hard to Prove a Negative . . . . . . . . 12
5.6 Licensing Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.7 Third-Party Disclosure of IPR Claims . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.7.1 Third-Party Disclosure Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
This memo lays out a conceptual framework and rules of thumb to
assist working groups dealing with IPR issues. The goal is to
achieve a balance between the needs of IPR claimants and the
implementers of the Internet which is appropriate to current times.
As part of trying to distill out principles for dealing with IPR in
IETF working groups, it provides case studies of working group IPR
treatment. In other words, it documents the running code of the IETF
process.
This memo does not describe IPR procedures for document authors or
IPR claimants. Those are covered in two other memos, on IPR in the
IETF [3] and submission rights [4]. Rather, this memo is for working
groups that are trying to decide what to do about technology
contributions which have associated IPR claims.
2. The Problem
Traditionally the IETF has tried to avoid technologies which were
"protected" through IPR claims. However, compromises have been made
since before the IETF was born. The "common knowledge" of the IETF,
that IPR-impacted technology was anathema, has never recognized that
the Internet has run on IPR-impacted technologies from the beginning.
Nowadays the majority of the useful technologies brought to the IETF
have some sort of IPR claim associated with them.
It will always be better for the Internet to develop standards based
on technology which can be used without concern about selective or
costly licensing. However, increasingly, choosing a technology which
is not impacted by IPR over an alternative that is may produce a
weaker Internet. Sometimes there simply isn't any technology in an
area that is not IPR-impacted. It is not always the wrong decision to
select IPR-impacted technology, if the choice is made knowingly,
after considering the alternatives and taking the IPR issues into
account.
The IETF is not a membership organization. Other standards making
bodies may have membership agreements that member organizations must
sign and adhere to in order to participate. Membership agreements
may include strict procedures for dealing with IPR, or perhaps a
requirement that technology must be licensed royalty-free. This is
currently not possible in the IETF.
Even if the IETF had membership agreements, they would be difficult
to formulate in a way that covered IPR issues, because the IETF's
work includes technology from other sources and because the IETF
collaborates with organizations that work with different approaches
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to intellectual property. The IETF can encounter four different IPR
situations, at almost any time during the life of a document:
o A document submitter notes their IPR claim regarding the contents
of the document.
o A non-submitter IETF participant claims that the contents of a
document are covered by their (or their represented
organization's) own IPR.
o An IETF participant notes IPR that is claimed by an individual or
organization with which neither an author of the document, nor the
participant noting the IPR, have an affiliation.
o An individual or organization that does not participate in the
IETF, but that monitors its activities, discovers that a document
intersects that individual's or organization's established or
pending intellectual property claims. It may come forward right
away, or wait and let the IETF work progress.
In working group activities, the IETF does not have detailed rules
for each situation. Working groups have essentially only one rule
they can invoke -- about individuals not participating in activities
related to a technology if they do not disclose known IPR. Beyond
that a working group can only make recommendations and requests.
Since every case is unique, and there are close to no general rules,
working groups need a great deal of freedom in dealing with IPR
issues. However, some amount of consistency is important so that
both contributors and users of eventual standards can know what to
expect.
3. The Approach
The goal of this memo is not to make rules. The goal is to give
working groups as much information as possible to make informed
decisions, and then step out of the way. The other IPR working group
memos [3][4] lay out what needs to be done once a particular piece of
technology is selected as a working group draft. However, this
doesn't help when a working group is trying to decide whether or not
to select a technology in the first place. This third memo is written
to help in making that decision. We want to build a conceptual
framework, a new set of "common knowledge", to make it easier for
working groups to deal with intellectual property issues.
To do so, we first present a number of "case studies" in Section 4 --
real events that have happened in recent years, and how different
working groups dealt with them -- plus notes on possible lessons to
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be learned. In Section 5, we expand on these lessons and try to
extract general principles.
4. Case Studies
The best way to know what works in dealing with IPR is to look at
past attempts to do so. The following are selected as cases from
which general lessons might be extracted. Other lessons might be
extracted from other cases, but the cases below cover all of the
important ones.
4.1 PPP CCP and ECP
The PPP Working Group adopted technology for PPP's Connection Control
Protocol and Encryption Control Protocol which it knew was patented.
They indicated to the IESG that they believed the patented technology
was the best approach, and was better than no standards at all.
At that time, under the policies documented in RFC 1602 [5] (the
precursor to RFC 2026), progress on any standard was to stop at the
Proposed Standard phase until specific assurances about licensing
terms could be obtained from all IPR claimants. However, as
described in RFC 1915 [1], in the case of PPP ECP and CCP, the IPR
claimant balked at the requirement for specific assurances.
Finally, with support from the working group, a variance was granted
to the RFC 1602 procedures. If it hadn't been granted, the ECP and
CCP standards could have been blocked permanently.
Lessons:
o IPR claimants, even when their intentions are good, may strongly
resist being forced to make specific public statements about
licensing terms. If explicit statements of licensing terms are
required, then the publicly stated terms will probably be
"worst-case", which would provide little useful information.
4.2 IPS WG (IP Storage)
The IPS (IP Storage) Working Group evaluated technology developed
outside of the working group, "secure remote password" (SRP, RFC 2945
[6]). At the time, there was one known IPR claim, and the proposed
licensing terms were apparently reasonable. SRP had become a
proposed standard without going through any working group, so IETF
participants may have been less likely to notice it in order to make
statements about IPR. In any case, two more possible IPR claims were
uncovered after the IPS working group had already decided to make SRP
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required. One of the possible IPR claimants did not make a strong
IPR claim itself, and did not want to take the time to determine
whether it actually had a claim, though it acknowledged it might have
a claim. In both cases it was difficult to obtain concrete
information on possible licensing terms, even though words like
"reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" were used in the IPR
statements. Rumors of what they might be like did not sound good.
The working group participants took the claims, potential and
otherwise, very seriously, and decided not to use SRP after all, even
though they had already chosen it based on other criteria.
Lessons:
o IPR claims may appear at any time in the standards process.
o Take impreciseness seriously. Attempt to get clarification on
both IPR claims and licensing terms.
4.3 PEM and PKI issues
PEM (Privacy-Enhanced Mail) wanted to use public key technology. In
the mid-90s, the basic principles of public key infrastructure had
been patented for years. The patent holder had shown a tendency to
actively enforce its rights, and to prefer software sales to
licensing. This was seen as a significant potential issue, one which
could possibly interfere with the easy deployment of Internet
technology. However, there was no alternative technology that came
close to its capabilities. Adopting an alternative would have
damaged the standard's usefulness even more than adopting a
technology with IPR claims. The case was so compelling that the
working group participants decided to move forward on standardizing
it and even requiring it.
One factor which was noted was that the patents were mature, and
would expire within a few years. That meant that although the patents
might be significant to start with, they would not be in the long
run. This lowered the perceived risk of using the IPR-impacted
technology.
Lessons:
o IPR is just one issue in deciding whether to adopt a technology.
o IPR is not an all or nothing issue. There are different types and
levels of IPR protection.
o The IPR's lifecycle phase can be a consideration.
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4.4 CDI WG (Content Distribution Internetworking)
The CDI (Content Distribution Internetworking) Working Group laid out
an overall architecture and found that a number of included
technologies had IPR claims associated with them, based on work done
before the working group was started. The working group participants
decided there was little chance of producing alternative technologies
which were as useful and which did not run up against these IPR
claims. As usual, there was no good way to evaluate claims and
possible licensing terms until after the technology had been
completely specified (at the earliest).
However, working group participants generally thought they had a good
idea what to expect from each other with regard to licensing, and in
fact expected few if any problems. The expected risks were low
enough that they thought the ultimate benefits of using the
technologies outweighed the expected burden of the IPR issues. The
working group participants decided they did not need to consider IPR
as an issue in determining which technologies to adopt.
Lessons:
o Past experience with patent claimants can be used as a significant
factor in evaluating the possible impact of IPR. It can lead to
enough mutual trust that concerns about licensing terms do not
slow the working group down.
4.5 VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol)
The working group was standardizing VRRP based on a protocol
developed outside the IETF. The IPR claimant supported that protocol
and stated that it would license its IPR for that protocol if it
became the standard, but not for the similar protocol the working
group was developing. The working group participants decided to go
ahead and standardize the protocol developed in the working group
anyway. The IPR claimant has only claimed its patent when someone
else claimed a patent against it. There is no evidence that the
working group participants actually thought about the implications of
the IPR claim when it went ahead with its choice of protocol.
Lessons:
o IPR claims should never be disregarded without good cause. Due
diligence should be done to understand the consequences of each
claim.
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4.6 Secure Shell (SecSH)
This is primarily an unfinished trademark issue, not a patent issue,
since the patent issue has been worked out outside of the IETF. The
holder of a trademark wants the IETF to stop using "SSH" in the names
and bodies of its proposed standards. The working group participants
have thought through the details of the claims, and possible
implications and risks, and decided to go ahead and continue using
the names as they are now.
Lessons:
o Working group participants can evaluate IPR claims not only for
their possible validity, but also for the risk of misjudging that
validity. The impact of honoring the IPR claim may be major or
minor.
4.7 IDN (Internationalized Domain Name)
The IDN working group dealt with a number of IPR claims. Several were
made which did not overlap with the technology -- the IPR claimants
said the patents were being announced just in case the working group
decided to go that way. In one case, even though a patent was
announced as purely defensive, many working group participants
investigated the claims themselves. They concluded that it did not
overlap.
In one case, an IPR claimant asserted that the working group's
documents, and in fact the IETF as a whole, were infringing on its
rights. Individual working group participants consulted with their
legal advisers, concluded that the claims would not overlap the
working group's developing technology, and decided that they need not
be concerned about the claims. This was reflected in the direction
the group as a whole decided to take.
In another case, patent claims were asserted that appeared to be
derived from WG discussion, rather than vice versa (or independent
discovery). The claimants were known to be following the WG's work
when the ideas were proposed, and their patent filing was
considerably subsequent to that time.
In 2000 the IDN working group discovered a patent that some
participants thought might apply to one of their main drafts. If it
did, it could affect their work profoundly -- to the extent that some
suggested that if they could not work out reasonable licensing terms
with the IPR claimant they might just disband. As a group and
individually, participants corresponded with IPR claimant in order to
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get an explicit statement of licensing terms, preferably
royalty-free. By doing so they gained a better understanding of just
which WG activities were seen as infringing on the patent, and at
least some understanding of the IPR claimant's intentions and
philosophy. Since the patent holder seemed to have an interest in
using the patent for profit, the group discussed the issues on its
mailing list. They overtly talked about how they could change their
proposed technology to avoid having to contest the patent, and the
extent to which the patent might be countered by claims of prior art.
Meanwhile, individually they were talking to their legal advisors.
Gradually, a collective opinion formed that the working group
documents did not infringe on the patent. Since then, the patent has
been ignored. However, they are keeping a watchful eye out for
continuation patents which might have already been submitted.
Lessons:
o It's sometimes beneficial to push IPR claimants to find out what
they think their claims cover and what their licensing terms are.
o Possibilities of prior art should be considered.
o It's all right, and sometimes beneficial, to discuss IPR claims
and gather information about possible prior art on the group list.
The results of such discussion can be considered when deciding
whether to develop a technology (but remember that neither the
IETF nor any working group takes a stand on such claims as a body,
and the group is not the best place to get legal advice).
5. General Principles
Given the case studies above, there are a few principles that working
groups can start with in dealing with IPR. Of course every working
group needs to develop and follow its own consensus, and actual
treatments will vary as much as they have in the past. However, every
working group also needs to take IPR seriously, and follow these
general principles.
5.1 Types of IPR
A primer on the different types of IPR would be large, unreliable,
and redundant with other Working Group documents [2][3][4]. For
informal exploration, see those documents and other relevant sources
on the web. Readers with more serious concerns should consult their
legal advisors. In the United States, briefly:
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o Trademarks indicate the sources of goods. Service marks indicate
the sources of services. They protect the use of particular marks
or similar marks.
o Copyrights protect the expressions of ideas (not the ideas
themselves), in almost any form, and allow "fair use". Copyrights
expire but they can be renewed.
o Patents protect "inventions". They expire (utility patents expire
after 20 years), but follow-on patents can cover similar
technologies and can have nearly the same implications for use in
the Internet as the original patents.
5.2 When to think about IPR
This memo does not describe IPR procedures for document authors or
IPR claimants. Rather, this memo is for working groups that are
trying to decide what to do about IPR claims related to their work.
A working group as a whole needs to think about IPR issues:
o when examining a technology, and deciding whether to initiate work
on it.
o when deciding whether to adopt a draft as a working group
document.
o when choosing between two or more working group drafts that use
different technologies.
o when deciding whether to depend on a technology developed outside
the working group.
o when comparing different kinds of IPR protection.
At each of these times, the working group is strongly encouraged to
solicit disclosure of IPR claims and licensing terms. A working
group's job will be a lot easier if IPR details are discovered early,
but it should realize that IPR claims may appear at any time.
Working groups should anticipate that an IPR claimant might choose
not to participate in the IETF, but instead to monitor from a
distance while the relevant technology is being discussed and
evaluated. Actual knowledge of IPR claims may therefore depend upon
when a claimant steps forward during the course of a WG's
deliberations.
5.3 IPR as a Technology Evaluation Factor
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How do you weigh IPR claims against other issues when deciding
whether to adopt a technology?
The ultimate goal of the IETF is to promote the overall health,
robustness, flexibility and utility of the Internet infrastructure.
We base architectural decisions on our long-term extrapolations of
requirements by thinking in these terms. When considering a
particular technology, we compare it with other technologies not just
for its elegance of design in and of itself, but also for how it fits
in the bigger picture. This is done at multiple levels. It is
examined for how it fits into the overall design of the working
group's output, how it fits into the particular Internet
infrastructure area, how it fits with work going on in other areas,
and how it fits in the long view of the Internet architecture.
Similarly, when evaluating a technology, working group participants
consider IPR claims on it (including possible copyright issues with
text describing it). The issue is not whether a particular piece of
technology is IPR-impacted -- we use IPR-impacted technology every
minute. The question is how much the IPR protection will limit the
technology's usefulness in building a robust, highly useful Internet.
Thus, the only significant questions are: is the IPR claim relevant,
and if so what are the terms under which the technology can be used?
When technology is free from IPR protection the answer is easy. When
it is IPR-impacted, some terms make the IPR issues insignificant
compared to the engineering issues. Other terms can make a
technology unusable even if it is perfect otherwise.
The problem with IPR as a technology evaluation factor is that it is
unlikely that a working group, as an entity, can ever claim to have
reached consensus on most IPR issues. The IETF as a whole, and a
working group as a whole, takes no stance on the validity of any IPR
claim. It would be inappropriate for a working group chair to
declare that consensus had been reached that, for example, a
company's patent was invalid. Individual participants will need to
use whatever legal advice resources they have access to in order to
form their own individual opinions. Discussions about the validity
of IPR can take place under the auspices of the working group, in
particular about relative risks of technology choices. Individual
participants can take these discussions into account. The working
group as a body may not take a stance on validity, but it may make
choices based on perceived risk.
5.4 Patents versus Pending Patents Applied For
The IETF does not (cannot) expect IPR claimants to tell a working
group specifically how they think a particular patent applies. If a
patent has already been granted, the IETF can reasonably expect
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disclosure of the patent number and possibly the relevant IETF
document sections, which will allow working group participants to
explore details of the claims. If a patent has not yet been granted
(or if knowledge of the patent is restricted, e.g. for security
reasons), significantly less information is available. In most
countries patent applications are published 18 months after they are
filed, but in the USA that can be avoided if the applicant does not
also file outside the USA. In some countries applications are a
matter of public record, but details of pending claims can be
modified at any time by the claim submitter before the patent is
granted. It is not known before then what rights will actually be
granted. Finally, rights can be contested in court, and nothing is
final until the courts decide -- perhaps not even then. All the IETF
can expect regarding a pending patent is disclosure that it exists,
the related IETF documents, and possibly the relevant IETF document
sections and some statement about licensing terms.
5.5 Applicability: It's Hard to Prove a Negative
Working group participants must make their own decisions about what
level of confidence they need as to whether IPR is applicable.
However, perfect knowledge is not a worthwhile goal.
In general, a working group should strive to find out about all IPR
claims related to technologies it is considering, and at least the
general facts about licensing terms for each case -- for example
whether the terms will be royalty-free, or perhaps "reasonable and
non-discriminatory". Working group participants should also
investigate possibilities of prior art which would counter the IPR
claims. However, even if the working group participants do
exhaustive searches, both externally and internally to their
employers, it is impossible to prove that a particular technology is
not covered by a particular IPR claim, let alone prove that it is not
covered by any IPR claim. Anything a working group adopts may, in
the future, turn out to be IPR-impacted, although the IPR claim may
not be discovered until years later. Claims are open to
interpretation even after rights are granted. Drafts can be very
fluid, even up to the time of last call, and IPR issues may
unknowingly be taken on at any time. Absolute certainty about IPR
claims is extremely rare.
However, the level of confidence needed to consider IPR when
evaluating a technology is often not hard to get to. There are cases
where risk is high (e.g. where licensing terms may be onerous) and
thus a high level of confidence about applicability is needed, but
history shows that most of the time "rough" confidence is good
enough. In any case, perfect confidence is usually impossible.
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In all cases, licensing terms are a more significant consideration
than the validity of the IPR claims. licensing terms often do not
limit the usefulness of the technology. It is difficult to be sure
about the validity of IPR claims. If the licensing terms can be
determined to be reasonable, then the IPR claims become much less
important.
5.6 Licensing Terms
Licensing terms vary across a range from no license required at all
to prohibitive. In general, working groups show a preference for
technologies with IPR considerations in approximately the following
order. This list does not constitute a rule, and every working group
needs to take its own circumstances into account.
o IPR disclosed and licensed with no restrictions.
o IPR licensed with no material restrictions, e.g. no trademark
license required.
o IPR licensed for a particular field of use but with no other
material restrictions, e.g. licensed solely for implementations
complying with a standard.
o IPR licensed under royalty-free terms and reasonable and
non-discriminatory restrictions.
o IPR licensed under reasonable and non-discriminatory restrictions.
This may include payment of a royalty.
o IPR which is otherwise licensable.
o IPR which is not licensable, i.e. which is only available as an
implementation.
o IPR which is not available under any conditions.
Many IPR claimants do not like to publish specific terms under which
they will issue licenses. They may use standard terms for many
licensees, but they prefer to negotiate terms for some. Therefore,
do not expect any IPR disclosure statement to lay out detailed
blanket terms for licensing.
If an IPR disclosure statement lists only vague terms, that doesn't
mean the terms that will be offered in individual licenses will be
any worse than those offered in an IPR disclosure that makes very
specific statements. Obviously, if an IPR claimant refuses to suggest
any terms at all, the working group is going to have trouble
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evaluating the future utility of the technology.
There is a class of restriction which involves "reciprocity", in
which the IPR claimant's patented technology may be used by an
implementer of the IETF standard ("licensee") as long as the licensee
allows the IPR claimant to use the licensee's own patented technology
covering the standard under comparable terms (this could be called
"bilateral" reciprocity). A "general" or "universal" reciprocity
restriction is also possible, under which the technology is made
available royalty-free as long as the licensee does not enforce any
IPR claims against the licenser.
Words such as "reasonable", "fair", and "non-discriminatory" have no
objective legal or financial definition. The actual licensing terms
can vary tremendously. Also, IPR claimants have occasionally
asserted that there were already sufficient licenses for a particular
technology to meet "reasonable" multisource and competitiveness
requirements and, hence, that refusing to grant any licenses to new
applicants was both fair and non-discriminatory. The best way to
find out what an IPR claimant really means by those terms is to ask,
explicitly. It also helps to gather knowledge about licenses actually
issued, for that technology or for others, and about other
experiences with the IPR claimant.
Despite the fact that IPR claimants often don't like to publish
explicit terms, there are levels of vagueness, and individuals and
even working groups can sometimes successfully push an IPR claimant
toward less vagueness. Many employers of IETF participants know that
that IETF prefers explicit terms, and do feel pressure to produce
them.
If working group participants are dissatisfied with the confidence
level they can obtain directly about licensing terms for a particular
technology, they can possibly extrapolate from history. In order for
licensed technology to become a draft standard, at least two
independent licenses need to have been issued. If the IPR claimant
for the technology the working group is considering has licensed
other technology in the past, there is a record of the sorts of terms
they are willing to grant, at least in those two specific cases.
This sort of thing is weak but everything counts, and it may be of
some help.
In many jurisdictions that issue patents, inventors are required to
file patent applications within 12 months of public disclosure or use
of a novel method or process. Since many of these jurisdictions also
provide for publication of pending patent applications 18 months
after a patent application is filed, the ability to determine whether
or not claims have been made at all relating to a particular
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technology increases 30 months (12 + 18) after the public disclosure
or use of that technology.
5.7 Third-Party Disclosure of IPR Claims
Formal procedures for third-party disclosures are outlined in [3].
However, anyone considering such a disclosure is encouraged to engage
in some preliminary exploration with the affected working group(s)
beforehand (see Section 5.7.1). third-party disclosure is a potential
denial of service threat to the working group, and therefore it is
good form to proceed slowly.
Working group participants should be aware that third-party
disclosure can be used, knowingly or unknowingly, to defocus and
distract the working group and hinder its progress. They should
evaluate 3rd party disclosures accordingly. WG chairs should be
willing and able to discipline those they think are using the
third-party disclosure system inappropriately. Those who think they
are being unfairly blocked may take the matter up with the Area
Directors and/or the IESG.
All of the criteria for evaluating IPR claims discussed in the
sections above apply in the case of third-party disclosures as well,
to the extent they can be practiced.
5.7.1 Third-Party Disclosure Advice
This subsection provides advice to those considering making
third-party disclosures. While not strictly required, the actions
described here are encouraged to aid working groups in dealing with
the possible implications of third-party disclosures. In evaluating
what (if anything) to do in response to a third-party disclosure, a
WG may consider the extent to which the discloser has followed this
advice (for example, in considering whether a disclosure is intended
primarily to defocus and distract the WG).
In general a potential discloser should exchange mail with the
working group chair(s) first, to open the way for discussion. Also,
if the potential discloser is not sure if the IPR claim applies, this
is the time to reach some kind of agreement with the working group
chair(s) before saying anything publicly. After discussion with the
working group chair(s), the potential discloser should bring the
issue to the attention of the working group, and to the attention of
the IPR claimant if doing so is not too difficult. Such discussion
should help the potential discloser to become more sure, one way or
the other. If the potential discloser is sure the discovered IPR
claim applies, and the IPR claimant does not submit a first party
disclosure itself, then the potential disclosure is encouraged to
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submit a third-party disclosure.
Intellectual property often applies to more than one working group.
A person thinking of making a third-party disclosure should consider
what other working groups might be affected, and communicate with
them in the same manner.
Don't bring up IPR issues that are unrelated to the areas where the
WG is focusing at that time. Don't bring claims to the WG's
attention just in case it might go there in a few months, only if it
has implications for current work. Messages to the working group list
should be substantive, and a single message should focus on a
specific issue. They can reference multiple claims or patents
related to that issue.
6. Security Considerations
This memo relates to IETF process, not any particular technology.
There are security considerations when adopting any technology,
whether IPR claims are asserted against it or not. A working group
should take those security considerations into account as one part of
evaluating the technology, just as IPR is one part, but they are not
issues of security with IPR procedures.
7. Acknowledgments
The editor would like to acknowledge the help of the IETF IPR Working
Group. The editor would also like to thank the following for their
extensive comments and suggestions: Robert Barr, David Black, Scott
Bradner, Jorge Contreras, Paul Gleichauf, Keith Moore, Russell
Nelson, Jon Peterson, Randy Presuhn, Pekka Savola, Valerie See, Bob
Wyman, and Joe Zebarth.
Normative References
[1] Kastenholz, F., "Variance for The PPP Connection Control
Protocol and The PPP Encryption Control Protocol", BCP 3, RFC
1915, February 1996.
[2] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[3] Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology",
draft-ietf-ipr-technology-rights-04 (work in progress), April
2003.
[4] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Submissions",
draft-ietf-ipr-submission-rights-04 (work in progress), April
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2003.
Informative References
[5] Huitema, C. and P. Gross, "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 2", RFC 1602, March 1994.
[6] Wu, T., "The SRP Authentication and Key Exchange System", RFC
2945, September 2000.
Author's Address
Scott Brim
Cisco Systems, Inc.
146 Honness Lane
Ithaca, NY 14850
USA
EMail: sbrim@cisco.com
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Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of
claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can
be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
Director.
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
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HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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