Understood. /jim
> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Noel Chiappa > Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 10:34 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? > > > From: "Bound, Jim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > I believe the IETF should not permit at some date in > the future any > > part of a specification to have any IPR from any vendor that is > > accountable to patents or royalties. In simpler terms > anything we > > develop in the IETF is public domain in the legal > context, and we do > > not use any vendor patents for any of our work. > > This is impossible without a great deal of additional work, > and an additional lengthy (multi-year delay), for reasons > that I would have thought would have been obvious. > > The thing is that anyone can have a patent which bears on an > IETF spec, and the holder of that patent might not even be > active in the IETF. So the IETF could issue a spec, everyone > could implement it, and once they've been selling gear for > some months, people could get demand letters from someone > we've never heard of. > > There is no easy way to detect such 'submarine' patents - and > doing a lengthy search of all issued patents is not > guaranteed to find such things either, as the patent in > question may have been applied for, but not yet issued > (various jurisdictions have differing rules on whether > applications are made public). > > About the only thing that's relatively sure to ensure there > are no patent issues is for the IETF to patent the spec, and > see if the patent office allows the patent. If so, then > you're _probably_ (but not necessarily, as the patent office > does make mistakes fairly often) OK. Of course, that will add > many years to our approval process. > > > the base core IETF specs are patent, royalty, and IPR > free to all > > worldwide regardless of geography or governmental boundaries. > > Now you've just multiplied the work by a factor of over 100, > as each patent jurisdiction worldwide has its own set of patents. > > > > From: John C Klensin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > I believe that the right way to handle these cases > involves _not_ > > having IPR submissions go directly to the database but > instead be the > > subject of a nominal manual review ... > > Being a little proactive in that way prevents nonsense > from getting > > into the database in the first place and saves us > discussions about the > > appropriate boundaries for removing something already posted. > > Excellent point. > > Noel > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
