Re: IPR Disclosure: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)'s Statement about IPR related to draft-ietf-rtgwg-mrt-frr-architecture-01

[Curtis Villamizar <[e-mail]>]

Alvaro,

Please remind me.  Has there been any discussion as to whether the XRO
(exclude route object) in RSVP-TE (RFC 4874) would qualify as prior
art, since the XRO specifies a "system and method of implementing a
lightweight not-via fast reroute in a telecommunications network"?
The patent seems to be a method patent and not a use patent.  It
appears to me that the only major difference between the XRO and the
Ericson patent (which may affect not-via and use of redundant trees of
which maximally redundant would be a subset), is that XRO is applied
to RSVP-TE and was intended to aid in multi-domain use of RSVP-TE and
the Ericson patent uses a functionally identical approach (indicate
which resources to avoid) applied to IP rather than RSVP-TE.

The XRO was introduced in draft-ietf-ccamp-rsvp-te-exclude-route-00 in
June 2003 which became an RFC in 2007.  The patent was submitted in
2006, three years after XRO publication (not counting individual
submissions prior to the first WG draft).  If this counts as prior
art, the patent is invalid.

I'm not sure how this could affect MRT but not affect the notvia work
(no IPR disclosure from Ericson on that).  The
draft-bryant-shand-ipfrr-notvia-addresses-00 individual submission was
published in March 2005.  This also precedes the patent.

The only reason I can see that notvia and XRO might be considered
different is that they don't specify a redundant tree.

Another question for legal types is whether computing redundant trees
is an algorithm (specifically a graph theory algorithm) and therefore
not patentable at all.  Should a patent of this type specify the use
of a redundant tree algorithm in IP or LDP?  Can a patent apply to the
use of *any* algorithm which falls within the classification of a
redundant tree algorithm in IP or LDP?

Of course, I am not an attorney so I cannot give a legal opinion on
this matter or any other legal matter.  I am asking if there has ever
been such a discussion and whether my layperson legally uniformed
opinion might by chance be accurate or close to accurate.

If the patent is valid, does apply to the MRT work, and has no
licensing specified, IMHO the WG should cease to work on this.

Curtis


In message <[e-mail]>
"Retana, Alvaro" writes:

As a reminder, having an IPR claim does not disqualify a draft from advancing in the IETF, being adopted by a working group or from eventually becoming a standard.  It just represents one more item to be considered by the working group.    

http://www.ietf.org/ipr/policy.html

To help in the evaluation, the following link is to the patent application itself (provided by the authors):

http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2010055408&recNum=1&docAn=IB2009007467&queryString=FP:%28PCT/IB2009/007467%29&maxRec=1
 

As a chair, my job is to remind the WG of the IETF policy -- the decision of whether we should continue to work on this item is to be made by the individuals participating in the WG.  Because the concern expressed by Curtis has come up several times (from different people), including at the meeting in Taipei, I would like to hear other opinions specific to the impact of the terms of the IPR filing with respect to the architecture proposed.

Thanks!

Alvaro.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf
> Of Curtis Villamizar
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:53 AM
> To: [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail];
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: IPR Disclosure: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)'s
> Statement about IPR related to draft-ietf-rtgwg-mrt-frr-architecture-01
> 
> 
> In message <[e-mail]>
> IETF Secretariat writes:
> 
> >
> > Dear Gabor Sandor Envedi, Alia Atlas, Robert Kebler, Andras Csaszar,
> > Russ White, Mike Shand, Maciek Konstantynowicz:
> >
> >  An IPR disclosure that pertains to your Internet-Draft entitled "An
> > Architecture for IP/LDP Fast-Reroute Using Maximally Redundant Trees"
> > (draft- ietf-rtgwg-mrt-frr-architecture) was submitted to the IETF
> > Secretariat on 2012-06-18 and has been posted on the "IETF Page of
> > Intellectual Property Rights Disclosures"
> > (https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1801/). The title of the IPR
> > disclosure is "Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)'s Statement
> > about IPR related to draft-ietf-rtgwg-mrt-frr-architecture-01."");
> >
> > The IETF Secretariat
> 
> 
> Prior reasons to be hesitant about this work included the rather
> substantial change to routing and forwarding, and the need to deploy
> network wide (no accommodation for legacy equipment).  Regardless, it
> became a WG item.
> 
> Now that there is an IPR disclosure with no statement at all regarding
> licensing terms, it might be time to reconsider whether the WG should
> go forward with this work.
> 
> IMHO- If the IPR disclosure is not updated with a reasonable and
> non-discriminatory, preferably royalty-free, licensing statement, the
> MRT work should be abandoned by RTGWG.
> 
> Curtis
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