Re: why to contact the IETF

["Steven M. Bellovin" <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:59:52 -0800
"Lawrence Rosen" <[e-mail]> wrote:

> The result of the FSF campaign has been to raise a legal concern

No, they didn't raise the concern.  The concern had been raised
previously by people who are obviously IETF participants, including
Simon Josefsson.  (I don't recall if you've posted on this particular
I-D, but I obviously put you in the category of IETF participant, too.)

> obviously important to many of us: Will users of the proposed IETF
> TLS specification require patent licenses from RedPhone to use such
> implementations in the US or elsewhere? 
> 
> I don't yet know the answer to this question. Does anyone here?

As you well know, the IETF per se doesn't care about the answer to
that question.  Individual participants may care, of course, and can
and should use that information when making their own judgments.  

More precisely -- the statement "the IETF should not standardize
draft-chthulhu-shogoth-666.txt because the technology is patented" is a
NOP according to IETF policies on patented works.  The proper
formulation is "I feel that standardizing
draft-chthulhu-shogoth-666.txt is a bad idea because in this particular
case, the licensing terms are too onerous for the benefit gained",
perhaps with a suggestion that some other technology be adopted instead.

> 
> Several emails here have valiantly attempted to get us to focus on the
> technical aspects of the RedPhone patent claims, the progress of the
> patent in the PTO and PCT, and other technical issues. Speaking only
> for myself, I haven't yet seen any justification for us fearing the
> RedPhone patent claims. They may be as bogus as the hundreds of other
> patent infringement claims that companies receive letters about every
> day. OTOH, they may be deadly submarines ready to attack us all. 
> 
> Why don't we organize to answer the patent claim infringement issues
> like professionals do? Ask technical experts. Consult a patent
> attorney. Render expert opinions. 

Absolutely -- that's everyone's right, privilege, and (arguably) duty.
I haven't looked at it myself because I have no particular interest in
it at the moment, but this is definitely the proper course.  It's also
perfectly proper to post analyses to influence others -- that was done
years ago in IPsec to reassure people that a particular patent was
unlikely to be enforceable.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb