Re: 6man w.g. last call for <draft-ietf-6man-grand>

[Fernando Gont <[e-mail]>]

On 20/7/20 08:26, Jen Linkova wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 6:39 PM Fernando Gont <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> That said, I'm curious about the possible implications of the following
>> IPR, in particular "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory License to All
>> Implementers with Possible Royalty/Fee"..
>>
>> Could this potentially mean that eventually some implementations might
>> need to pay a Royalty/Fee to be fully compliant with the Neighbor
>> Discovery spec?
> 
> Believe me, I'm very confused as well. I'm not a lawyer but my very
> limited understanding  is  (again, it's quite possible I misunderstood
> everything so pls take it with a grain of salt):
> - the IPR claim does not actually mean that the specification update
> in the draft is really patented.  It means that the draft describes
> something related or similar to the patented technology.
> - implementers, or their lawyers..or some other lawyer...would need to
> assess if whatever they are going to implement is covered by the
> patent or not, and act accordingly.

My take (but, hey, other people on the list certainly know better and 
can probably clarify) is that it's an actual claim that the stated IPR 
covers the document.



> - my attempt of deciphering  the patent in question makes me believe
> that that common element is creating a NC entry upon receiving an
> unsolicited NA - which was never prohibited by RFC4861 in the first
> place (it is saying 'SHOULD NOT'). However the patent seems to define
> a machinery which is far more complicated than what the draft
> describes.

I didn't read the patent itself, to be honest. If it's not applicable 
(i.e., related in some way, but not really covered), it would be great 
for Ericsson to clarify (although I believe the claim is that the IPR 
covers the document).

My concern is that having core standards encumbered by IPRs is 
particularly problematic for open source projects.

As such, I'd prefer that, as a general rule, documents updating core 
standards are not ipr-encumbered.


-- 
Fernando Gont
SI6 Networks
e-mail: [e-mail]
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