Re: [I2nsf] IPR Statements about I2NSF documents

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

Hi folks. 

As you may have noticed, after some back-and-forth with the authors and their university, the IPR statements have been modified as follows:

OLD:
Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers with Possible Royalty/Fee

NEW:
If this standard is adopted, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) will not assert any patents owned or controlled by SKKU against any party for making, using, selling, importing or offering for sale a product that implements the standard, provided, however that SKKU retains the right to assert its patents (including the right to claim past royalties) against any party that asserts a patent it owns or controls (either directly or indirectly) against SKKU or any of SKKU's affiliates or successors in title or against any products of SKKU or any products of any of SKKU's affiliates either alone or in combination with other products; and SKKU retains the right to assert its patents against any product or portion thereof that is not necessary for compliance with the standard. Royalty-bearing licenses will be available to anyone who prefers that option.


The new version is similar to the licensing terms in many IPR statements issued by other rights holders.  See for example https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3591/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3591/>

It is still up to the working group to decide if this is acceptable, and group members, especially those who raised objections previously, are encouraged to chime in.

We will raise this issue one more time at the meeting, just to make sure everyone has been heard from.

Thanks,

Linda & Yoav


> On 6 Jun 2019, at 20:27, Yoav Nir <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> Yesterday we got 5 IPR statements ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]) related to the following drafts respectively:
> draft-ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm 
> draft-ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model
> draft-ietf-i2nsf-capability-data-model
> draft-ietf-i2nsf-registration-interface-dm
> draft-ietf-i2nsf-consumer-facing-interface-dm
> 
> All of these are WG documents, and one of them (the capability data model draft) is in WGLC.  See [6] and RFC 8179 for more information about IPR disclosures.
> 
> All the disclosures claim that the patents or patent applications mentioned may be necessary for implementation of the drafts. Neither the chairs nor anyone else in the IETF is considered competent to evaluate such claims or the validity of any patents, so I suggest that in this thread we avoid bringing this up. What may be concerning is that the licensing policy for these disclosures is "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers with Possible Royalty/Fee”, which makes such technologies problematic to many implementers, especially non-commercial ones.
> 
> To quote from section 7 of RFC 8179:
>    In general, IETF working groups prefer technologies with no known IPR
>    claims or, for technologies with claims against them, an offer of
>    royalty-free licensing.  However, to solve a given technical problem,
>    IETF working groups have the discretion to adopt a technology as to
>    which IPR claims have been made if they feel that this technology is
>    superior enough to alternatives with fewer IPR claims or free
>    licensing to outweigh the potential cost of the licenses.
> 
> 
> So this message is to start a discussion about how the I2NSF working group would like to handle this disclosure. Continuing as before and moving to publication is the default outcome of this discussion, but the WG is required to evaluate its position about these disclosures. This is what this thread is for.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
> Linda & Yoav
> 
> [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3553/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3553/>
> [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3557/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3557/>
> [3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3556/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3556/>
> [4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3555/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3555/>
> [5] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3554/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3554/>
> [6] https://www.ietf.org/standards/ipr/ <https://www.ietf.org/standards/ipr/>