RE: Blue Sheet Change Proposal

[Dean Anderson <[e-mail]>]

Speaking as president of the LPF; not a lawyer but a knowledgeable 
layman.

I think you are correct that the patent issue is a red herring. The
patentee has the _right_ (not the obligation) to keep patent application
contents secret. Failure to keep the secret merely causes them to lose
the _right_ to trade secret status.  They might want that status in the
event the patent application is rejected.  They lose the trade secret
right if the patent is granted, when the patent application is published
18 months after filing, or if they disclose the information publicly, or
if someone _independently_ rediscovers the secret. Obviously, if they
are trying to standardize the patent, they can't have trade-secret
status anyway: the "secret" is publicly disclosed in the draft text.  
So the issue of disclosure is moot.

I have no opinion on whether blue sheet changes are a good idea or a bad
idea for other reasons.  Generally, though, my experience and view is
that truth and disclosure is always a good thing for the public
interest.

		--Dean

On Wed, 9 Apr 2008, Wes Beebee (wbeebee) wrote:

> Regarding the legal issues - if the sessions are broadcast over the
> Internet, and freely downloadable (w/o specifying or tracking who was
> downloading them), how can you be certain that someone was NOT aware
> of certain IPR?  Also, if someone was in the room, how can you be
> certain they WERE aware of certain IPR?  The only thing that the IETF
> can say is that every contribution to the IETF is considered to be
> publically disclosed, and this is indeed what the Note Well says.
> 
> It seems to me that the IPR concerns are a red herring.
> 
> - Wes
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of
> Eric Burger
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 8:07 PM
> To: IETF Discussion
> Subject: Re: Blue Sheet Change Proposal 
> 
> Two purposes for Blue Sheets:
> 
> 1. Redundant data entry: Quite often, the name is illegible, while the
> e-mail is legible.  We don't care about the e-mail address, what we
> really care about is who was there.  IMHO, this is the important use for
> capturing the e-mail address.
> 
> 2. Legal issues: When the inevitable patent dispute happens, we WILL get
> served to report who was in the room when a particular subject was
> discussed.  Other standards bodies have had this problem, if we haven't
> had it, it means our time is near :-(
> 
> 
> On 4/3/08 4:22 PM, "Mark Andrews" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> >> All,
> >> 
> >> We are considering changing the meeting Blue Sheet by eliminating the
> 
> >> need to enter an email address to avoid spam concerns.
> >> 
> >> Is there any good reason to retain that info bit?
> >> 
> >> Ray
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> IETF mailing list
> >> [e-mail]
> >> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
> > 
> >         It's is the only unique token on the blue sheets.  This
> >         assumes no shared email accounts which is a pretty reasonable
> >         assumption in this case.
> > 
> >         Mark
> > --
> > Mark Andrews, ISC
> > 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
> > PHONE: [phone]                 INTERNET: [e-mail]
> > _______________________________________________
> > IETF mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
> > 
> 
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