2.2.2 Intellectual Property Rights (ipr)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 64th IETF Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. It may now be out-of-date.

Last Modified: 2005-09-27

Chair(s):

Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>

General Area Director(s):

Brian Carpenter <brc@zurich.ibm.com>

General Area Advisor:

Brian Carpenter <brc@zurich.ibm.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: ipr-wg@ietf.org
To Subscribe: ipr-wg-request@ietf.org
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ipr-wg/index.html

Description of Working Group:

The IETF and the Internet have greatly benefited from the free
exchange
of ideas and technology. For many years the IETF normal behavior was
to
standardize only unencumbered technology.

While the "Tao" of the IETF is still strongly oriented toward
unencumbered technology, we can and do make use of technology that has
various encumbrances. One of the goals of RFC2026 "The Internet
Standards Process -- Revision 3" was to make it easier for the IETF to
make use of encumbered technology when it made sense to do so.

The IETF IPR policy, as embedded in RFC 2026 section 10, has proven
fairly successful. At the same time, a perceived lack of textual
clarity on some issues have made necessary the publication of
clarifications such as the "note well" statement issued in every
registration package, the I-D boilerplate rules, and a huge number of
discussions on specific IPR-related issues.

This working group is chartered with updating and clarifying section
10
of BCP 9, RFC 2026, which deals with intellectual property rights,
including, but not necessarily limited to, patent rights and
copyrights.

This working group will provide three documents:

o A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
  IPR policy on rights relevant to the document publication
  process, such as copyright issues and trademark issues.

o A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
  IPR policy on rights relevant to the use of IETF-standardized
  technology, such as patent-related claims

o An Informational document, which describes useful rules of thumb for
  working group chairs and working group members when working on IPR
  issues, as well as describing specific cases of IPR issues that have
  been successfully worked out in the IETF process, and providing
  references to specific examples of licensing statements and
copyright
  provisions that have proved useful or worrisome. In other words, we
  plan to document the running code of our process.

The working group will attempt to work in three phases:

1. Document existing IPR practice in the IETF

2. Identify issues with current IPR practice that need to be addressed

3. Modify the documents produced in step 1 to reflect the outcome of
the
  discussion of items identified in step 2.

If there consensus of the working group for a different IPR policy
than
the one described in RFC 2026, the working group will seek to amend
its
charter to make it clear that it is changing the status quo.

The working group will have a design team to assist with document
drafting and review. As always, design team drafts have no special
status, and are subject to amendment, ratification, and/or replacement
by the working group.

Goals and Milestones:

Done  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents - documenting existing practice
Done  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology - documenting existing practice
Done  1st draft of IPR guidance document
Done  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents
Done  List of issues that need to be discussed while revising the documents
Done  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology
Done  2nd draft of IPR guidance document
Done  IPR BCP document on documents sent to IETF Last Call
Done  IPR BCP document on technology sent to IETF Last Call
Done  IPR guidance document submitted to IESG for publication
Oct 2004  Conclude WG.

Internet-Drafts:

  • draft-ietf-ipr-rules-update-01.txt

    Request For Comments:

    RFCStatusTitle
    RFC3667 BCP IETF Rights in Contributions
    RFC3668 BCP Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology
    RFC3669 I Guidelines for Working Groups on Intellectual Property Issues
    RFC3905 I A Template for IETF Patent Disclosures and Licensing Declarations
    RFC3978 BCP IETF Rights in Contributions

    Current Meeting Report

     
    - agenda bashing
. Randy asked if Scott's draft deals with rights granted by the IETF
. Scott said "almost no"

- ietf trust
. iaoc chair presented briefly on ietf trust (more at plenary tomorrow)

- Harald introduced his slides

- Scott Bradner's slides
. Scott replied to Randy's question on Scott's draft dealing with 'outbound
rights' by saying that his draft only dealt with 'outbound rights' in one
place, and that was on legends on RFCs (section 2.3)
. Sam Hartman: if this document is adopted, can the ietf grant the right to grant
the right to create derivitive works (transitively grant)?
. Answer: yes
. David Black: SDOs operate in hierarchy, so we may need to grant rights to
ANSI, ISO, IEEE
. Scott suggests removing 'case by case basis' from his document
. Brian: so we would get the right to issue blanket rights?
. Scott: yes
. Randy asks about the value of removing the phrase
. Scott says it allows the ietf to decide in the future what to do without
limitation
. Harald says it can cut down on paperwork
. David: is there any effect, should IETF cease to exist, will trust cease
to exist?
. Answer: no

- Harald introduced Question 1
. Scott Brim: if we get this right it remains case-by-case
. Scott: taking the words out does not mean we grant blanket
. Randy: could consider leaving 'case-by-case' in
. Harald: strongly oppose this, want to first consider
. Sam: Agrees with Harald, agrees with Scott
. ?? : ietf needs this right, not limited by case-by-case
. Ted Hardie: Can I argue that it is appropriate to publish RFCs in both cases,
where the author choose to grant that right where the author chooses not to.
. Ted: We can ask for this right, but in the case where we do not, the
derivers need to get that right directly from the author.
. Sam: it will be a mess if some standards allow, and some do not
. Scott: we need to have the right in all standards-track documents
. Ling: Author needs to know what ietf intends to do, blanket rights are
very different from case-by-case
. Pekka: do we believe the ietf will be responsible in giving out this right?
. Ted: Think of the documents we co-publish with ITU; If we tried to grant
transitive rights to those, or get these rights to those, we'd be S.O.L.
. Scott: only doc we did with ITU (megaco) was a mess; we said 'never again'

- Harald calls question
. Several hands go up on first part, none on second, only one or two on
third.  Harald declares rough consensus on authors granting ietf right to
grant rights to third parties

- Simon presents his slides

- David Black presented his slides (on "field of use")
. Sam: as an implementor, my code is used in open-source, this won't work
for them; they need ability to fix bugs in code
. Scott: question of intent: what does 'change text of rfc' mean?
. David: an implementation of rfc can change things in support of the rfc
. ???: I implement an rfc and want to publish a doc 'how I did it'
. David: different: take rfc, change, publish as rfc


The discussion went on for a few minutes more, but then the meeting slot ended.
The issue of outgoing IPR was definitely "take it to the list".

    Slides

    Session agenda
    Bradner - Changes proposed
    Josefsson - Problems
    Black - Field of Use