[I2nsf] IPR Statements about I2NSF documents

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

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/
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3557/
[3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3556/
[4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3555/
[5] https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/3554/
[6] https://www.ietf.org/standards/ipr/