Re: Proposed New Note Well

[Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]>]

On 01/05/2016 01:35 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>    IPR disclosures under Sections 6.1.1. and 6.1.2 are required with
>    respect to IPR that is owned directly or indirectly by or otherwise
>    benefits the individual or his/her employer or sponsor (if any) or
>    to IPR that such persons otherwise have the right to license or assert."
>
> I don't like the idea of legislating on such a fundamental question other than
> through a BCP.
>
> Note that this is not a trivial extension. If companies A and B have a private
> patent cartel (a.k.a. cross-licensing), contributors from company B would
> be caught by this extension if aware of a relevant patent owned by company A.
> That really isn't something we can slide in through the back door.

In particular, "would benefit", if strictly interpreted, would mean that
anyone participating in a patent pool with license redistribution, or
possibly even ones with defensive suspension clauses (if that's seen as
a benefit) would be on the hook for any patent in the pool, not just the
ones they own or contributed to it.

MPEG-LA licensors, for instance, would probably like to know what the
rule is on that.

[Agreed fully with Jorge that this needs to go to the BCP79bis
discussion, not the Note Well discussion - Note Well has to summarize /
reference the *existing* rules, not what we (IETF mailing list members
of the moment) think the rules should be.]

-- 
Surveillance is pervasive. Go Dark.