Re: [codec] Last Call: <draft-ietf-codec-opus-12.txt> (Definition of the Opus Audio Codec) to Proposed Standard

[Ron <[e-mail]>]

Hi Stephan,

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 10:53:13PM +0000, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> The question of whether a section in the subject doc is
> the right place for such a grant has not yet been answered.
> My view on the latter: it's not.  One issue of having such a notice is
> that it expressly allows derivative work, possibly WITHOUT removing the
> IETF boilerplate and the TLP copyright notice first.

Except that the additional grant explicitly requires that:

 "redistributed modified works do not contain misleading author, version,
  name of work, or endorsement information."

And my understanding is that the sort of misrepresentations which you suggest
are already well protected against in established law.  So I don't think that
this would weaken the IETF's position in the event of such a thing happening,
and I'm not aware of any such problem occurring with any of the RFCs that are
already published containing such a grant.  Similarly there exist other RFCs
which already have external grants too, and there has been no hint of trouble
or an inability to prevent it if it arose with those either, has there?

If this clause becomes a blocker, then we should simply remove it, but in that
case it would be good to have clear reasons why it became a blocker, since the
things you say you fear here, I see as already being prohibited anyway.


I agree with you that this is an entirely separate issue to the validity or
other implications of any of the IPR claims though.  But on that note, have
you had any clarification from Huawei as to whether they believe their newly
acquired patent actually does read on this technology?  Last I had heard on
that there was some doubt and they were still studying it?  It would be nice
to have them officially clear that up.

Cheers,
Ron