Ira:
The IEEE's policy is one of assurance rather than disclosure. Disclosure
is informally encouraged.
The W3C; however, does have a policy mandating disclosure. It does
carefully walk this line by stating in clause 6.7:
"Disclosure of third party patents is only required where the Advisory
Committee Representative or Working Group participant has been made aware
that the third party patent holder or applicant has asserted that its
patent contains Essential Claims, unless such disclosure would breach a
pre-existing nondisclosure obligation."
It is important to realize that in RFC3668, from which clause 6.1.3 it
says:
"If a person has information about IPR that may Cover IETF Contributions,
but the participant is not required to disclose because they do not meet
the criteria in Section 6.6 (e.g., the IPR is owned by some other company),
such person is encouraged to notify the IETF by sending an email message to
ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Such a notice should be sent as soon as reasonably
possible after the person realizes the connection."
Notice the use of the word "may" in the first sentence. If you have even
the faintest idea that a patent might be on material in an I-D you should
disclose the existence of the patent but I don't read that section to mean
that you are claiming its applicability. Also notice that disclosure of
the IPR of others is encouraged and not required.
The statement mandated to be included is actually extracted from RFC3667,
clause 5.1. Since it states "in accordance with RFC3668" and since RFC3668
only encourages the disclosure of IPR belonging to others I'm not sure what
the hang up is. There seems to be enough weasel words here that unless you
intentionally obfuscating the patents on your submission you'd be OK
especially if they are owned by someone else and for whom you are not an
agent or employee.
BTW: I am not a lawyer.
**********************************************
Don Wright don@lexmark.com
Chair, IEEE SA Standards Board
Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
f.wright@ieee.org / f.wright@computer.org
Director, Alliances & Standards
Lexmark International
740 New Circle Rd
Lexington, Ky 40550
859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
**********************************************
|---------+---------------------------->
| | "McDonald, Ira" |
| | <imcdonald@sharpl|
| | abs.com> |
| | |
| | 07/12/2004 11:09 |
| | AM |
| | |
|---------+---------------------------->
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: "'don@lexmark.com'" <don@lexmark.com>, "McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald@sharplabs.com> |
| cc: "'carl@manros.com'" <carl@manros.com>, "McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald@sharplabs.com>, "Ipp@Pwg. Org" |
| <ipp@pwg.org>, owner-ipp@pwg.org |
| Subject: RE: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Hi Don,
Disclosing someone else's patent worries me.
Disclosing that _in the judgment of that someone else_ this
patent has applicability to this spec is legally very dangerous.
Patent holders are typically very touchy about the timing of
making such judgments public.
Making document authors certify that they are not aware
of any relevant patent (belonging to other parties) is
_not_ consistent with the IPR policies of W3C or IEEE
(as far as I know).
Cheers,
- Ira
Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald@sharplabs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: don@lexmark.com [mailto:don@lexmark.com]
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 8:09 AM
To: McDonald, Ira
Cc: 'carl@manros.com'; McDonald, Ira; Ipp@Pwg. Org; owner-ipp@pwg.org
Subject: RE: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts
Ira:
Yes you would be required to disclose the patent held by someone else that
you were told about; however, it is not your responsibility to assess
whether the patent is applicable. Today, virtually all standards
organization's patent policies (IEEE, W3C, ISO, etc.) either encourage or
mandate the submitter to disclose any patents which might be applicable to
the submission whether held by you, your employer or someone else IF you
actually know about it.
I don't understand the problem. Why should you worry about disclosing
someone else's patent... it's public information anyway.
**********************************************
Don Wright don@lexmark.com
Chair, IEEE SA Standards Board
Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
f.wright@ieee.org / f.wright@computer.org
Director, Alliances & Standards
Lexmark International
740 New Circle Rd
Lexington, Ky 40550
859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
**********************************************
|---------+---------------------------->
| | "McDonald, Ira" |
| | <imcdonald@sharpl|
| | abs.com> |
| | |
| | 07/11/2004 03:10 |
| | PM |
| | |
|---------+---------------------------->
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------|
|
|
| To: "'don@lexmark.com'" <don@lexmark.com>, "McDonald, Ira"
<imcdonald@sharplabs.com> |
| cc: "'carl@manros.com'" <carl@manros.com>, "Ipp@Pwg. Org"
<ipp@pwg.org>, owner-ipp@pwg.org |
| Subject: RE: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts
|
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------|
Hi Don,
My very point: "or someone has told you about it". The reference
to RFC 3668 has no protection benefits at all. In law, the
direct text is everything.
If a collaborator on a public standard (from another vendor)
tells me out of courtesy about a probably applicable patent
(only lawyers really know about applicability), then this
I-D boilerplate requires _me_ to disclose _their_ patent.
Not even close to acceptable.
Cheers,
- Ira
Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald@sharplabs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: don@lexmark.com [mailto:don@lexmark.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 2:16 PM
To: McDonald, Ira
Cc: 'carl@manros.com'; Ipp@Pwg. Org; owner-ipp@pwg.org
Subject: RE: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts
It seems to me saying "of which I am aware" and then "in accordance with
RFC 3668" in the I-D would explicitly qualify awareness to be "reasonably
and personally known to the submitter."
If you don't know about it then it can't be held against you. How could
you reasonably and personally be aware of a patent held by someone else
unless you spend your days trolling the various countries patent databases
or someone has told you about it?
*******************************************
Don Wright don@lexmark.com
Chair, IEEE SA Standards Board
Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
f.wright@ieee.org / f.wright@computer.org
Director, Alliances and Standards
Lexmark International
740 New Circle Rd C14/082-3
Lexington, Ky 40550
859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
*******************************************
"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald@sharplabs.com>
Sent by: owner-ipp@pwg.org
07/10/2004 12:57 PM
To: "'carl@manros.com'" <carl@manros.com>, "Ipp@Pwg. Org"
<ipp@pwg.org>
cc:
Subject: RE: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts
Hi,
Harald Alvestrand replied to Carl-Uno Manros (see below):
We do - which is why the phrase "reasonably and personally known to
the submitter" in RFC 3667 / 3668 is so important.
But "reasonably and personally" is NOT part of the IPR statement
required at the beginning of every submitted I-D (without which
the I-D Editor will no longer publish any I-D).
Here's the relevant verbatim quote from "1id-guidelines.txt":
All Internet-Drafts must begin with the following intellectual
property rights (IPR) statement:
"By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable
patent or other IPR claims of which I am aware have been disclosed, or
will be disclosed, and any of which I become aware will be disclosed,
in accordance with RFC 3668."
Personally, I'm not writing any more I-Ds. Because there's not any
limitation in this IPR boilerplate about patents or IPR of _other_
parties that the editor may be or become aware of.
Cheers,
- Ira
Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald@sharplabs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ipp@pwg.org [mailto:owner-ipp@pwg.org]On Behalf Of
carl@manros.com
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2004 3:22 AM
To: Ipp@Pwg. Org
Subject: IPP> FW: Copyright statements in drafts
All,
Regarding some of the new required text in Internet Drafts.
This has been discussed for a while on the IETF Chairs list.
I raised a similar qustion to the one brougth up by Ira.
See my question and the official answer from the IETF Chair Harald
Alvestrand below.
Carl-Uno
Carl-Uno Manros
700 Carnegie Street #3724
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Tel +1-702-617-9414
Fax +1-702-617-9417
Mob +1-702-525-0727
Email carl@manros.com
Web www.manros.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [mailto:harald@alvestrand.no]
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004 10:02 AM
To: carl@manros.com; wgchairs@ietf.org
Subject: RE: Copyright statements in drafts
--On 3. juni 2004 15:49 -0700 carl@manros.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am not sure whether I missed this in the discussion, but I can see
some
> problems with Copyright statements in early drafts. There may well be
> people or organizations which already hold patents or copyrights for
> things that find their way into I-Ds. If they are not actively involved
> in that particular WG, they may not discover any infringements until the
> RFC is in IETF wide Last Call. Hopefully we provide for Copyright
> objections at that stage, even if there has been umpteen earlier I-Ds on
> the subject.
We do - which is why the phrase "reasonably and personally known to the
submitter" in RFC 3667 / 3668 is so important.
Harald
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jul 12 2004 - 12:01:23 EDT