Re: ipr-wg was Proposal to cease accepting IPR disclosures by unstructured email

Yes, but... Unless the IETF starts successfully suing people who
exhibit bad behavior that violates our norms or others start
suing such people on the grounds that they incurred significant
costs because they relied on the belief that there were going to
be no licensing requirements, even action by the courts might be
limited to, as you have pointed out, ruling a patent
unenforceable and thereby making any licensing claims go away.
What the IETF can actually do to enforce whatever rules we make
(again, short of suing participants which might have really bad
side effects) is very, very limited.

   john

--On Monday, July 18, 2022 16:55 +0000 "Bradner, Scott"
<sob@harvard.edu> wrote:

> fully agree - enforcement, if any, is up to the courts
> 
> Scott
> 
>> On Jul 18, 2022, at 12:37 PM, John C Klensin
>> <john-ietf@jck.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --On Monday, July 18, 2022 13:11 +0000 "Bradner, Scott"
>> <sob@harvard.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>>> On Jul 18, 2022, at 9:07 AM, Alan Clark
>>>> <alan.d.clark@telchemy.com> wrote:
>>> ...
>>> 
>>>> IMHO it would be ideal to make participation in IETF
>>>> conditional upon early disclosure 
>>> 
>>> it is if the participant personally knows of the IPR or
>>> should, because of his or her job, know of the IPR and has
>>> been for quite a while
>> 
>> Scott, yes.  But to split an important hair, that prohibition
>> depends almost entirely on the honesty and good will of the
>> would-be participant.  If someone decides to conceal IPR they
>> know about personally, we normally don't find out until much
>> later.  To the best of my knowledge, we have never withdrawn a
>> standard because we found out later that the disclosure rules
>> were not followed even if we might start an effort to
>> supercede it with something less encumbered.  We have never
>> un-published an RFC because of disclosure failures, much less
>> tried to sue a participant for not complying with the rules
>> [1].  Even the most severe punishments we have for bad
>> behavior --  AFAICT, RFC 3683 revocation of posting rights --
>> may not be sufficient to prevent "participation".  IMO (YMMD)
>> there are no real penalties under the Code of Conduct and the
>> scope of the Ombudsteam does not include lying to the IETF
>> rather than bad acts against individuals.  If someone with
>> the authority to do so (IESG? Trustees? -- not clear to me
>> that there is such an entity) decided that someone was evil
>> for not disclosing as required, it isn't clear that there is
>> any documented basis for telling them they could not register
>> for and attend an IETF meeting.
>> 
>> So, that requirement depends a great deal on good will,
>> understanding of the provisions, and good intentions.
>> Without knowing what Alan by "make ... conditional", if the
>> late disclosure is deliberate and a deliberate violation of
>> those rules, the requirement is, AFAICT, fairly toothless.
>> 
>> I don't have an opinion as to whether that could be fixed
>> without risking even more damage to the IETF.
>> 
>> best,
>>   john
>> 
>> [1] if one thinks the Note Well and surrounding materials
>> constitute an actual contract between the participant and the
>> IETF I presume that would be, in theory, possible.  But IANAL.
>> 
> 
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