Re: Issue found in RFC 3667 text

Fred - let me crystallize this if I can - scary thought eh?

Perhaps what is really being said here is actually "that the person
submitting the draft may not have IPR therein" ... which could work for the
purpose of giving the IETF an arms-length from the IPR issues when it
publishes the drafts or workproduct.

It works to protect the IETF, since it is the "release" in effect I have
been talking about for a year or so now,  but even this step does not set
aside that others may have IPR against that IP, so its still prudent for all
concerned to do "full sweeps" of the available IP Databases when they pickup
or assume a role in some development effort.

Hey - Mssr Barr - what do you think of this one ? - That for people doing IP
Scans or Sweeps, that its also probably worth getting a Lexis Account to
search for litigation on certain issues as well...

Todd

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Baker" <fred@cisco.com>
To: "Contreras, Jorge" <Jorge.Contreras@haledorr.com>
Cc: <sob@harvard.edu>; <ipr-wg@ietf.org>; <rbarr@cisco.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 6:47 AM
Subject: RE: Issue found in RFC 3667 text

> At 07:49 AM 04/28/04 -0400, Contreras, Jorge wrote:
> >As far as the second issue raised by Fred, that was an intentional
> >feature.  If a patent application has not been published and the
applicant
> >wishes to maintain the confidentiality of its contents, then he/she
should
> >not submit an ID covered by the application's claims unless willing to
> >disclose enough to satisfy the 3668 requirements.
>
> IANAL, and Todd Glassey advises me that there is some recent case law that
> sets aside what I'm about to say. Legal comment would be instructive to
the
> discussion.
>
> My understanding is that the confidentiality of the filing is not at his
> option. Since the claims have been neither supported or denied, he cannot
> say what IPR claims he might have. At most, he can say that he "may have
> IPR" related to the draft.
>
> To say that he should not submit a draft in such a case is to say that the
> IETF should stop its work. Generally, invention happens in the course of
> solving a problem. I can solve a problem for my customer and in so doing
> generate potential IPR. If I can't talk about that in the course of
> standardization, the standard will therefore likely not meet my customer's
> needs. Voila, the internet runs on proprietary protocols and procedures,
> and standards lag. It is also to say that vendors are forced to develop
> early proprietary solutions, and their customers are forced to buy them,
in
> addition to later standardized solutions, where what the customer is
> requesting is standardized solutions in the first place. Vendors today
> frequently contribute IPR to standardization discussions and solve their
> customers' issues in the context of the standard.
>
> I really need to be able to say that I have filed a defensive patent
> without going into the details of the patent, as I myself don't know more
> than that I have filed it. If the argument is that I should not have filed
> the patent, I can point to a case currently being litigated in which
>   - I wrote some code (for a prior employer)
>   - I didn't patent it as I had pulled the algorithm out of the research
> literature,
>   - An employee of a related company wrote a patent on the algorithm,
>   - Now Cisco and said other company are locked in a legal battle.
>
> Corporate policy requires me to write defensive patent applications to
> prevent such situations. So not filing the patent application, however
much
> I might prefer it, is a violation of my company's policy. (I do push back
> when IMNSHO it gets to the point of being ridiculous, as rbarr will
attest...)
>
> It seems that in a case where the license is free and is extended in any
> case except if the licensing company sues mine (Cisco's practice on such
> things), this should be sufficient.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ipr-wg mailing list
> Ipr-wg@ietf.org
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
Ipr-wg@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg