RE: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's "patent")

["Lawrence Rosen" <[e-mail]>]

Harald Alvestrand writing about decisions made on March 16-22 2003:
> > 1. do you wish this group to recharter to cdhange the IETF's IPR policy
> >     hum for (some)
> >     hom anti (more)
> >    fairly clear consensus against rechartering.  anyone disagree?

Hi Harald,

Let's forget the past; I acknowledge we lost that argument then among those
few who bothered to hum. 

But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a
loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? This is not
the first such open source campaign either. IETF needs a more sturdy process
to deal with IPR issues. Please consider the suggestions now on the table.

Best regards,

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: [phone]
Skype: LawrenceRosen





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harald Alvestrand [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 5:10 AM
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References
> to Redphone's "patent")
> 
> Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> > Chuck Powers wrote:
> >
> >> +1
> >>
> >> That is a legal quagmire that the IETF (like all good standards
> >> development groups) must avoid.
> >>
> >
> > Chuck is not alone in saying that, as you have just seen.
> >
> > These are the very people who refused to add "patent policy" to the
> charter
> > of the previous IPR WG, and who controlled "consensus" on that point
> last
> > time.
> To be precise: "Last time" was at the San Francisco IETF meeting, March
> 16-22 2003, and I was the one "controlling consensus".
> 
> The minutes (at http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/132.htm ) show
> this conclusion, after much discussion:
> 
> > 1. do you wish this group to recharter to cdhange the IETF's IPR policy
> >     hum for (some)
> >     hom anti (more)
> >    fairly clear consensus against rechartering.  anyone disagree?
> >
> > harald: will verified on mailing list, will lead to some debate.  if
> > consensus is reached against rechartering... the IETF will not consider
> > proposals to create or reactivate IPR wg before people with
> > compelling arg to do so.  those should be different than what
> > prevented so far.
> >
> Despite the abysmal spelling quality, it was pretty clear at the time
> that the arguments presented were not compelling. I haven't seen
> significant new arguments in the meantime; that doesn't mean they don't
> exist, just that I haven't seen them.
> 
>                   Harald