Re: [rtcweb] H.264 IPR disclosures (or persistent lack thereof)

[<[e-mail]>]

Hi,

My and Nokia's interpretation has been that since neither of H.264 nor VP8 are IETF specifications, there is no obligation for anyone to disclose IPR on them in the IETF, even if there may be IETF specifications that refer to them. For H.264 all Nokia's IPR is publicly declared in ISO/IEC/ITU. For VP8 Nokia decided voluntarily to do the declaration to make it open and clear what the Nokia position on that is.

Markus

From: rtcweb [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of ext Mo Zanaty (mzanaty)
Sent: 13 December, 2013 07:41
To: Ron; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] H.264 IPR disclosures (or persistent lack thereof)

The confusion here is that the VP8 bitstream is defined in IETF (RFC 6386). So there are IETF IPR declarations on that (from Google and Nokia). The H.264 bitstream is defined in ISO/IEC/ITU but not IETF. So there are ISO/IEC/ITU IPR declarations on that (from many, not just MPEG-LA licensors), but there are no IETF IPR declarations since there is no IETF bitstream spec, just protocol specs that wrap or use the bitstream in opaque ways but don't define it in any way. You can see the ISO/IEC/ITU IPR declarations here:

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards_development/governance_of_technical_work/patents.htm

(The AVC standard is called H.264 in ITU and MPEG-4 Part 10 or 14496-10 in ISO/IEC.)

Note that IPR declarations are just that, a declaration, not verified in any way by any SDO as being a valid claim necessary to implement a standard.

Mo


On 12/12/13, 10:33 PM, Ron <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 03:03:12AM +0000, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) wrote:
Well lets turn the question around then.
Which document contains the requirement that makes H.264 an essential part of
its content, such that you would make an IPR declaration against it?

Including but not limited to ?:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=webrtc+draft+h264

And if you think this applies to H.264, where is the related VP8 disclosure,
which following your reasoning, is also required?

However, the requirement for an IPR disclosure is satisfied by a blanket
statement of the IPR discloser's willingness to license all of its potential
IPR meeting the requirements of Section 6.6 (and either Section 6.1.1 or
6.1.2) to implementers of an IETF specification on a royalty-free basis ...


Which is not to say at all that I'm arguing there shouldn't also be further
disclosures there too if you can point to something that says the above
doesn't already cover it.

Does that answer your questions, or are we going to do "Mom! He hit me!!"
next?

  Ron


> -----Original Message-----
> From: rtcweb [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Ron
> Sent: 13 December 2013 02:44
> To: [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
> Subject: [rtcweb] H.264 IPR disclosures (or persistent lack thereof)
>
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 12:30:32AM +0000, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) wrote:
> > If Ron can justify such a statement, the he is also in
> defiance of the
> > IETF IPR rules, because he himself is required to make a
> disclosure.
> > The requirement is to disclose if you know of..., not if you own.
>
> Maybe you should actually go read the Note Well RFCs before
> you engage in "No U" argumentation that just makes it look
> like you haven't.
>
> If I owned, or worked for or on behalf of anyone who owned
> IPR that was relevant to the work here, I indeed would have
> disclosed it according to the obligations noted there.
>
> Since I don't, and I don't actually know specific details of
> which patents might apply here (beyond reading of assertions
> there is a pool, and of court cases that are being pursued
> over them, and that many of the people pushing hard for the
> adoption of H.264 are holders of them) - I am indeed
> discharging the only obligation upon me that I SHOULD point and wave.
>
> > But I believe Stefan is correct. Neither IETF or its
> contributors has
> > not written a document specifying the H.264 codec as an
> essential part
> > of its operation, therefore making a disclosure is not required. If
> > IETF progresses to making a statement that incorporation of
> an H.264
> > implementation forms an essential part of a webrtc
> specification, then
> > disclosure in IETF will be required.
>
>  "Covers or may ultimately Cover a Contribution"
>
> I believe is the language used.
>
>  "unless ... rejected from consideration before a disclosure
> could reasonably
>   be submitted."
>
> And I'm pretty sure we're well past the time of "could
> reasonably", unless your position is that we should now
> immediately reject it from consideration?
>
>
> > ISO/IEC JTC1 does have a specification for H.264, and I am led to
> > believe disclosures of IPR have been made there. Noone involved in
> > this discussion as far as I am aware is hiding H.264 IPR. Again I
> > believe as a third party, you are also allowed to make IPR
> disclosures
> > there (certainly every other SDO I know of allows third
> party disclosures).
> >
> > And before this degenerates into a discussion of what
> people want the
> > IETF IPR rules to become rather than what they are, take
> that to the
> > IETF discussion list.
>
>  "Contributors must disclose IPR meeting the description in
> this section;
>   there are no exceptions to this rule."
>
> Nobody is arguing for a change to the rules here.  It's the
> blatant disregard for them (or perhaps you are trying to
> subtly demonstrate that it's simply ignorance of them) which
> is what concerns me at the present time.
>
> I'd prefer to just see this remedied by the people who the
> obligation falls upon than to make an example of them before
> the wider IETF.
> If it goes that far I would assume it will be with a call for
> sanctions.
>
>
> Stephan may still be correct that there is some sneaky back
> door that people can hide behind here - but if there is one,
> all that you've proved in these statements is that you don't
> know what it is either.
>
>   Ron
>
>
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