Re: Last Call: <draft-farrresnickel-ipr-sanctions-05.txt> (Sanctions Available for Application to Violators of IETF IPR Policy) to Informational RFC

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 2012-05-10 03:18, Pete Resnick wrote:
> On 5/9/12 6:40 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
> 
>>> I don't want participants to think that they can't bring up the issue
>>> of violation without some sort of "burden of proof".
>>>      
>> Hmm.
>>
>> I'm concerned about people bringing baseless accusations, as yet
>> another way to DOS a WG with IPR. If a person believes that there is a
>> violation that is worthy of the name, they should probably see to it
>> that it gets discussed, but I don't see how they make that
>> determination without having at least some data or report that can be
>> verified. If someone in my working group brings such an accusation to
>> me, trust me, the first question I am going to ask is "why do you
>> believe that". If the answer is "can't you see they have shifty eyes",
>> it will end there. I'm looking for at minimum that a named party has
>> evidence to support it.
> 
> I completely agree. That's why I asked that we figure out some text that
> does both things: Indicate that it's OK to say that you believe someone
> crossed the line and explain your reasons for that belief, but not
> require that it be a proven fact before you can even broach the subject.
> I can see how the current text might be too lax, but I thought Brian's
> text was too stringent. Looking for a happy medium.

Fair enough. I can't agree with SM though - as for appeals under RFC 2026,
the person bringing up an issue really has to provide a factual summary,
exactly to avoid witch hunts. It can be very short:

   Hi, I noticed that US Patent 12345 was filed in March 2010, and
   draft-blo-foobar was posted that June, and Jo Blo was an author
   of both. It looks as if they describe the same method, so why
   wasn't there an IPR disclosure in 2010? Would the WG Chairs consider
   sanctions against Jo Blo appropriate?

Possible text:

   Any IETF participant can draw attention to an apparent violation
   of the IETF's IPR policy.  This can be done by sending email to
   the appropriate IETF mailing list, including a short summary of
   the known facts and, optionally, a call for sanctions to be
   applied.

       Brian