Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations
John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com> Wed, 13 July 2016 12:24 UTC
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Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 08:24:42 -0400
From: John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com>
To: Jari Arkko <jari.arkko@piuha.net>, Barry Leiba <barryleiba@computer.org>, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations
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--On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 00:38 +0200 Jari Arkko <jari.arkko@piuha.net> wrote: >... > However, I wanted to say that we received advise from IETF > lawyers that highlighting that we do not check or endorse > statements in the IPR declarations more visibly would be > useful, even if the material is already presented in the RFCs. Are these the same lawyers who, IIR, warned us some years ago that making the Note Well look comprehensive could leave us in a situation in which the BCP documents themselves were unenforceable, especially if there was anything that could be interpreted as a discrepancy between the two? IANAL, but it seems to me that more documents/statements increases that risk. It seems to me that, if anything additional is needed, we should be either fixing the Note Well or putting the additional explanation on the IPR page (as Brian suggests). I do have two concerns about the latter: (i) More documents and hence more basis for people defending themselves against non-compliance by saying "too many places to look; missed that one" and (ii) anyone who is already on the IPR page probably doesn't need additional advice, especially advice to either look there or to read BCP 79 >... >> RFC 6701 explicitly puts WG Chairs and the IESG into the >> enforcement business > > RFC 6701 is about the responsibility of contributors to make > declarations. And actions if that doesn't happen. It is *not* > about the content of those declarations, however. In reality, neither is BCP 79. It attempts to describe circumstances under which one SHOULD or MUST disclose. But its Section 6.4 actually says remarkably little, especially for third party (and therefore "SHOULD") disclosures. Again, IANAL, but I believe that a lawyer for EvilCorp could look at BCP 79 and say "our IETF participants are required by BCP 79 to disclose, so we will do that rather than getting involved with later claims about patent enforceability, but we will devise a way to do so that actually exposes almost no information and is belligerent about it". I think it is clear that the intent of BCP 79 is to discourage that sort of behavior and even to lay the foundation for challenges (outside the IETF) to patent enforcement. But it is also an edge case and I don't think it would be desirable for there to be any statements floating around that could be construed as preventing the community (including the IESG) from saying, "your disclosure, which basically says 'nah, nah, nah' violates the intent of BCP 79 by not providing any information a WG can evaluate and we are going to invoke RFC 6701 unless you clean up your act". I don't suggest the IESG should do that, but it would be an "evaluation" of the content of the disclosure and I'd rather see a case-by-case judgment call than the IESG boxing itself (and the community) into a corner by creating a constraint that BCP 79 does not create. >... > Does bcp79bis (draft-bradner-rfc3979bis) cover your issue? If > not, please submit an issue to Scott and Jorge. > > That document is on our plate to complete (and mostly on my > plate, Scott and Jorge are awaiting me for the next steps). I believe I have submitted issues and gotten no applicable response. john
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations joel jaeggli
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Brian E Carpenter
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations John C Klensin
- RE: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Adrian Farrel
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Barry Leiba
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations John C Klensin
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Barry Leiba
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Dave Crocker
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations John C Klensin
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Brian E Carpenter
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Dave Crocker
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Jari Arkko
- Re: Proposed IESG Statement on IPR Declarations Eliot Lear