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Intended Status: Best Current Practice

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Intended Status: Informational

Rationale: Nothing in this document changes any IETF process rules. It explicitly serves as advice to participants. That should be Informational.

OLD TITLE:
Antitrust Guidelines for IETF Particiants

NEW TITLE:
Antitrust and Competition Law Guidelines for IETF Particiants

Rationale: The usage of "antitrust" for this topic is a US peculiarity. 

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1. Introduction

Standards development frequently requires collaboration between competitors.

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1. Introduction

Standards development in many standards development organisations frequently requires collaboration between members who are competitors. The IETF is different in that participants act as individual contributors [BCP9] and not as representatives of their employers. Nevertheless, participants need to be aware of legal concerns related to antitrust and competition law.

Rationale:
The statement that IETF participants are individual contributors dates back to 1992 (RFC1310) and has always been fundamental precisely because of antitrust considerations.

DELETE this section because it's redundant:
2. Terminology 

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5. Additional Guidelines

As the IETF is a standards development environment where representatives from competitors are highly likely to be present, the following additional guidelines are recommended to avoid the possibility of participants violating antitrust laws.

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5. Additional Guidelines

Although the IETF is a standards development environment consisting of individual contributors, many of them are employees of or consultants for companies that may be competitive with each other. Thus, the following additional guidelines are recommended to avoid the possibility of participants violating antitrust laws.

Rationale: As above.

In  5.1. Adoption and implementation of standards:

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There should be no agreement among participants to implement or to adhere to IETF standards, or any discussions as to when participants will begin to offer products conforming to IETF standards.

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There should be no hidden agreement among participants to implement or to adhere to IETF standards, or any hidden discussions as to when participants will begin to offer products conforming to IETF standards. For the avoidance of doubt, this does not preclude open technical discussion or activity to verify correct technical operation of draft or final standards or open announcement of available prototypes or products. In particular, it does not preclude collaboration on open source implementations.

Rationale: We value running code, interop testing, hackathons, and open source.

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5.3. Market Requirements

No IETF participants should engage in, direct, or encourage other IETF participants to engage in, the use of IETF facilities for surveys of customers or gathering of statistical data about market requirements. However IETF participants may make presentations about broad market potential or market requirements for informational purposes.

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5.3. Market Requirements

No IETF participants should engage in, direct, or encourage other IETF participants to engage in, the use of IETF facilities for surveys of customers or gathering of statistical data about market requirements. For avoidance of doubt, this not preclude any open IETF activity involving a survey of particular technical requirements or of the current deployment of particular technical solutions. Also, IETF participants may make presentations about broad market potential or market requirements for informational purposes.