RE: clarification of blanket statement text

> Could the "not assert" terms in those be used in a blanket statement
> legitimately according to RFC 3668?

Simple phrases like “not assert” and “royalty-free” cannot possibly
suffice to describe acceptable patent licensing terms for open standards.

Consider the “non-assert” language of IBM’s recent grant of 500 patents
solely for “open source implementations.” Or Sun’s recent royalty-free
grant of 1,600 patents solely for software (like Solaris!) licensed under
its CDDL. Or Microsoft’s royalty-free grant of rights to its Sender ID
patents on terms otherwise unacceptable to the GPL, Apache and other open
source licenses. Or Cisco’s non-assert patent grant that places other
companies’ patents at risk through its “defensive termination” clause.

These are *all* examples of encumbrances upon the free exercise of patent
rights. Clarifying which are legitimate and which not is the function of an
IETF patent policy. We don’t currently have a policy that does that.

As for the scope of the charter of the IPR WG, if the charter doesn’t
include an opportunity to address these issues completely, any tinkering
with current language as has been done on this list in recent weeks is an
utter waste of energy and time.

Regards,

/Larry Rosen

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, technology law offices (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242  ●  fax: 707-485-1243
Author of “Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom
               and Intellectual Property Law” (Prentice Hall 2004)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ipr-wg-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:ipr-wg-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf
> Of Scott W Brim
> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:59 PM
> To: ipr-wg@ietf.org
> Subject: clarification of blanket statement text
>
> I'd like to discuss this at the meeting.  If necessary I can write up
> a small draft based on the results of discussion.  It's within scope
> of the current charter.
>
> In RFC 3668 6.4.3, it says:
>
>    However, the requirement for an IPR disclosure is satisfied by a
>    blanket statement of the IPR discloser's willingness to license all
>    of its potential IPR meeting the requirements of Section 6.6 (and
>    either Section 6.1.1 or 6.1.2) to implementers of an IETF
>    specification on a royalty-free basis as long as any other terms
>    and conditions are disclosed in the IPR disclosure statement.
>
> RFC 3668 explicitly says "royalty-free".
> http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/DYNAMICSOFT-SIMPLE.txt uses that term,
> but consider
> http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/cisco-ipr-draft-salowey-tls-ticket.txt,
> http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/hp-mib, and the classic RFC 1822 as
> examples that do not say "royalty-free" -- they say the discloser will
> "not assert" its patent except under certain specified conditions.
>
> Could the "not assert" terms in those be used in a blanket statement
> legitimately according to RFC 3668?
>
> Thanks ... Scott (Brim)
>
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> Ipr-wg@ietf.org
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