Re: [IETF-PKIX] Re patent 5699431 & PKIX

[Todd Glassey <[e-mail]>]

Paul,
I think that David is right but there may be a larger issue at hand here...

It is my understanding that  since a company or private entity could file for a
patent against a technology up to  one year after public disclosure, that it
would be possible to enact a standard in the IETF/IESG and then patent it if you
could complete the standardization process in less than the obligatory year.
With this in mind perhaps a revision of the IETF charter text with regard to
patent issues is in order.

By the way - The actual text of the Intellectual property's notice (as taken
from the bottom of http://www.ietf.org.ipr.htm) reads something like:

(C) Where the IESG knows of rights, or claimed rights under (A), the IETF
Executive Director shall attempt to obtain from the claimant of such rights, a
written assurance that upon approval by the IESG of the relevant Internet
standards track specification(s), any party will be able to obtain the right to
implement, use and distribute the technology or works when implementing, using
or distributing technology based upon the specific specification(s) under openly
specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms. The Working Group proposing the
use of the technology with respect to which the proprietary rights are claimed
may assist the IETF Executive Director in this effort. The results of this
procedure shall not affect advancement of a specification along the standards
track, except that the IESG may defer approval where a delay may facilitate the
obtaining of such assurances. The results will, however, be recorded by the IETF
Executive Director, and made available. The IESG may also direct that a summary
of the results be included in any RFC published containing
the specification.

for further clarification of patented technologies in Internet Standards, see
section 4.1.2  and section 10.3.2 of RFC2026 - The Internet Standards Process
v3.

In my mind there is a bigger question as to whether the IETF should set a
standards requirements that makes its standardized technologies free of patent
encumbrance. Personally I think that since the US people are still funding the
bunt of the Internet and its operations that the technologies that we as IETF
members standardize on MUST be freely available to all.

With that in mind, from my viewpoint there are two time based issues with the
patent issues

    1) the text of the existing charter is specific to "patented" technologies,
but doesn't address the timeliness of the disclosure and with the amount of time
it takes to get a submission worked through the US PTMO, sometimes as much as
two (2) years or longer if the claims of a given patent are opened to
prosecution or the like, it seems reasonable that the text of the IETF/IESG
charter could be amended to refer to "technologies or specific implementations
of technologies" that are under way or will be filed for patent protection
within the 1 year filing deadline for US based disclosure. (whew!, sorry bout
the long sentence there!)

With this type of patent-specific text in place, any technologies that are
enacted as standards would not be patentable UNLESS they, the patents
themselves, were put into the public trust or maybe as an alternative "licensed
freely" as though they were in the public trust... Somewhat like the Spread
Spectrum Radio Patents done in the 40's.

I apologize for ranting, but this is an issue that I am particularly sensitive
to!.

Todd

David P. Kemp wrote:

> > From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[e-mail]>
> > Date:         Thu, 15 Jan 1998 17:55:15 -0800
> >
> > Section 10.3.2 specifies what kind of patent information must be made
> > available before something can move onto standards track. If a company is
> > known to have an applicable patent but has not come up with a patent
> > statement, that company can hold up the process of getting the document on
> > standards track (nudge, nudge).
> >
> > --Paul Hoffman, Director
> > --Internet Mail Consortium
>
> draft-ietf-pkix-ipki3cmp-07.txt does not contain a patent statement, sigh.
> Will we need to wait for draft -08 before going to the IESG?
> (nudge, nudge, nudge).

 No - Lets get this one into IESG for review and action.

--
--------
--  Regards,
--  Todd Glassey

Todd's Latest Rant --
---------------------
"...Plan?, There ain't no plan, I though' you had the plan..."
      The Pig Killer - Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome