Re: [rtcweb] Unified plan IPR

[cowwoc <[e-mail]>]

Hi Adam,

On 23/07/2013 6:21 PM, Adam Roach wrote:
> The chairs have asked us not to cross-post. As this pertains to an 
> IETF IPR declaration, I'll speak to it here.

     I cross-posted because I think we need to have a separate 
discussion regarding how to mitigate IPR risk in the API. It's good that 
you removed [e-mail] from the reply (I should have 
explained as much in my original post).

> I'll note that your response is a vast overreaction at this juncture, 
> as (1) these are merely applications, not granted patents; and (2) 
> Ericsson has not yet indicated their intentions regarding the 
> licensing terms of any patents that may result.

     I am not a lawyer either so I apologize if this seems like an 
overreaction. Based on my limited knowledge of software patents, I view 
this as a matter of concern. Furthermore, based on my limited 
understanding of http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt I believe that IETF 
members are required to make IPR disclosures "as soon as reasonably 
possible after the Contribution is published". My understanding is that 
Ericsson was responsible to disclose this over 4 months ago (but did 
not). Again, I apologize if I am misunderstanding the document.

     Anyway, I'll wait to see what the community has to say. Hopefully 
we can come up with a reasonable solution.

Thanks,
Gili

>
> /a
>
>
>
> On 7/23/13 16:58, cowwoc wrote:
>>
>>     I'm a bit concerned about the optics of what just happened.
>>
>>   * The Working Group has been pushing for the use of SDP since 2011
>>     (see
>>     http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/mail15.html).
>>   * The first post related to the use of SDP in WebRTC came from
>>     Christer Holmberg of Ericsson on September 14th, 2011.
>>   * One of the Chairs of the Working Group and one of the
>>     Specification editors are from Ericsson.
>>   * There has been a substantial push against the use of SDP by some
>>     mailing list participants, but this was rejected by the Working
>>     Group.
>>   * Suddenly we find out that Ericsson has filed two patents related
>>     to the use of SDP in WebRTC and these were filed *after* Ericsson
>>     actively pushed for the use of SDP.
>>
>>     Isn't there a conflict of interest here?
>>
>>     As a Web Developer who doesn't want/need SDP to begin with, I am 
>> finding this a bitter pill to swallow. I have no problem with other 
>> people using SDP (all the power to them) but, with this IPR 
>> discovery, forcing their preference on me will have real-world 
>> consequences (no less than had we mandated the use H264 in WebRTC).
>>
>>  1. Do the patents imply that Web Developers will have to pay patents
>>     when deploying application on top of the Browser or Native APIs?
>>  2. Is there a way to retrofit the API so those of us who do not
>>     want/need to use SDP are not forced to license this IPR? For
>>     example, the specification states that the initial offer/answer
>>     mechanism is out of scope. Could we do the same for SDP?
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Gili
>>
>>
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>