Re: Last Call on draft-bradner-rfc3979bis-08.txt ("Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology")

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

A follow-up here:

I'd be more comfortably with something more waffly, something more like this:

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, acting as a working
group chair or Area Director can often be considered "Participating"
in all activities of the relevant working group or area; as such,
working group chairs and Area Directors are expected to make a best,
good-faith effort to carry out the responsibilities of Participants.

Or perhaps we want to separate WGCs from ADs here, and the text needs
more work in any case, but I hope people see the general point.

Barry

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Barry Leiba <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>The "reasonably and personally aware" applies to the IPR, not to the
>>>participation.
>>
>> I think this is incorrect.
>>
>> According to section 5.1.2 (disclosure requirement based on
>> Participation, not own IPR), a disclosure obligation exists if “the
>> Participant believes Covers or may ultimately Cover that
>> Contribution”.  I don’t think anyone could argue that an AD has a
>> “believe” in a patent or application he/she is aware of Covers a
>> Contribution when he has never seen the Contribution.
>
> Would you accept "I didn't read the draft" as an acceptable reason
> that someone engaged in active discussion on a draft didn't disclose?
>
> We don't have different levels of Contributor here.  Someone making a
> Contribution has an obligation to disclose, even if s/he was one of
> those who said, "I didn't read the draft, but...."  If we declare the
> ADs to be Contributors, why does the same not apply to them?
>
>> A late disclosure is better than no disclosure
>
> I hope we all agree on that!
>
>> clearly, an AD
>> has a much better justification of making such a late disclosure.  I
>> would hope that no one would complain if an AD makes a late disclosure
>> and, when asked for the reason of lateness, he says “I was not
>> responsible AD; I came across this during final review in IETF last
>> call, and just identified this. “  In fact, people should appreciate
>> this.
>
> Maybe so, but as it stands now in the document, it's still a late
> disclosure, and there might still be backlash, legal concerns by
> employers, and reluctance to put people in that position.
>
> If that's the consensus, then there we have it... but I think we
> should be very careful about unintended consequences of this one.
>
> Barry