[CFRG] Re: Request for adoption: Signature modes guidance / draft-harvey-cfrg-mtl-mode-03

[Colin Perkins <[e-mail]>]

On 5 Aug 2024, at 17:01, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 5, 2024 at 11:23 AM Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Aug 5, 2024 at 10:30 AM D. J. Bernstein <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>> Kaliski, Burt writes:
>>>> * Verisign announced a public, royalty-free license to certain
>>>> intellectual property related to draft-harvey-cfrg-mtl-mode-03.  IPR
>>>> declarations 6174-6176 [11] give the official language.
>>>
>>> I don't think most companies will find this license adequate: the
>>> license terminates in case of subsequent litigation, and is only for
>>> whatever is _required_ by an RFC.
>>>
>>
>> We shouldn't go too far down this, since this isn't an IPR discussion
>> list, but the limitations you note are very common in IETF / IRTF IPR
>> disclosures.  See, e.g.:
>>
>> * Cisco's disclosure on draft-irtf-icnrg-icn-lte-4g = RFC 9269:
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/5616/
>> * Google's disclosure on draft-irtf-cfrg-rsa-blind-signatures = RFC 9474:
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/4754/
>
> I agree with Richard to not go down the path. This was discussed in
> context of Cisco's (and others) at the WG chairs lunch as common
> declarations by legal advisors.

This is a common style of IPR declaration, but as I mentioned in the recent WG chairs lunch some care is needed due to the differences between IETF and IRTF streams.

IPR declarations are often written to grant certain rights when a technology is required to implement a standard.

The IRTF cannot publish standards track RFCs. The IRTF stream publishes only Informational or Experimental RFCs. CFRG is an IRTF research group, so publishes on the IRTF stream.

RFCs published on the IRTF stream might, or might not, be normatively referenced from standards track RFCs published by the IETF.

Colin