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Concluded WG Intellectual Property Rights (ipr)

Note: The data for concluded WGs is occasionally incorrect.

WG Name Intellectual Property Rights
Acronym ipr
Area General Area (gen)
State Concluded
Charter charter-ietf-ipr-02 Approved
Document dependencies
Personnel Chair Harald T. Alvestrand
Area Director Russ Housley
Mailing list Address ipr-wg@ietf.org
To subscribe ipr-wg-request@ietf.org
Archive https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ipr-wg

Final Charter for Working Group

The IETF and the Internet have greatly benefited from the free
exchange of ideas and technology. For many years the IETF normal
behavior was to standardize only unencumbered technology.
While the "Tao" of the IETF is still strongly oriented toward
unencumbered technology, we can and do make use of technology that has
various encumbrances.
One of the goals of the IETF IPR policy has been to make it easier
for the IETF to make use of encumbered technology when it made
sense to do so.

This group has attempted to clarify and update that IPR policy,
resulting in RFC 3978, RFC 3979 and RFC 3905. The WG has also
discussed the possibility of changing the IETF's patent policy, but
did not detect a consensus for doing so.

At the time of this recharter (February 2006), there are two
remaining items of work for the WG:

  • An issue with the production of derivative works has led to the
    realization that RFC 2026 and RFC 3978 do not specify exactly the
    same policy on this matter, and that neither policy, when read
    literally, may be optimal for the IETF's purpose,
    in accordance with its mission statement (RFC 3935), its policy
    of retaining change control of its own documents, and its desire
    for its documents to be openly available and useful.

  • The creation of the IETF Trust for managing the IETF IPR has led
    to the question of how the Trustees should evaluate the
    benefit of the IETF community as a whole and if necessary the
    consensus of the IETF on a given matter. Specifically the question
    arises whether the previous discussions of the IPR WG have led to
    experience that should be codified for the guidance of the Trustees.

The WG will produce 3 documents:

  • An update to RFC 3978 (BCP) that attempts to specify a complete set
    of rights with respect to derivative works granted to the IETF by
    authors, as well as technical updates necessitated by the existence
    of the Trust
  • A document (info) giving advice to the IETF Trust on what rights in
    IETF contributions it should attempt to grant to the public in order
    to retain change control while allowing open access, resolving the
    discrepancy between RFC 2026 and RFC 3978
  • A document (info) giving other advice to the IETF Trust on IPR
    handling, based on the IPR WG's experience of discussions in the area

The last document may include advice to the IETF Trust on
mechanisms for consulting with the community on IPR issues once the
IPR WG has closed, if consensus on such advice can be found.

The IPR WG may decide to drop the last document from its charter if
it decides that it has nothing to say.

All documents should have an IETF-wide Last Call before being approved.

Milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Oct 2006 Once documents are all published, close WG
Aug 2006 IPR advice to IESG for approval
Apr 2006 Granted rights advice to IESG for approval
Mar 2006 RFC 3978 update to IESG for approval
Feb 2006 1st draft of granted rights advice doc
Feb 2006 1st draft of IPR advice doc

Done milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Done 1st draft of RFC 3978 update
Done IPR guidance document submitted to IESG for publication
Done IPR BCP document on technology sent to IETF Last Call
Done IPR BCP document on documents sent to IETF Last Call
Done 2nd draft of IPR guidance document
Done List of issues that need to be discussed while revising the documents
Done 2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology
Done 2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents
Done 1st draft of IPR guidance document
Done 1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology - documenting existing practice
Done 1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents - documenting existing practice