Re: [antitrust-policy] Should the IETF allow discussion of licensing costs

[Jorge Contreras <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 4:00 PM, Stephen Farrell
<[e-mail]>wrote:

>
>
> On 01/20/2012 09:35 PM, Jorge Contreras wrote:
>
>> One way would be to prohibit only "collective negotiation of disclosed
>> royalty terms" or something along those lines.  Thus, discussion that
>> falls short of "collective negotiation" would be allowed.
>>
>
> Maybe I'm too literal but I find it hard to see the difference
> between a sequence of questions asking for more clarity and
> collectively hassling the IPR holder to be nicer. (At least when
> the clarifying questions are framed by the right kind of
> subtle folks that are common around here;-)
>
>
> S
>
>
Ultimately making that distinction in terms of actual behavior would be a
question of fact for a court.  However, in terms of writing a policy, it
does not seem like the distinction is difficult to describe as outlined
above.