The objective here is to constrain the amount of unproductive argument by limiting the number of possible end states. In particular I would like to tip the scales so that if we have proposals A and B where A is unemcumbered but B is not that proposal B has to demonstrate a remarkably higher value in order to be chosen over A. Now imagine that proposal B is slightly better but not so overwhelmingly so that it is going to win if it continues to be encumbered. I want the engineer responsible to be able to go to their management with a clear value proposition: that the licensing fees will be $0 in either case, that in order to benefit from the advantages of B the IPR owner is going to have to execute an agreement that satisfies these specific criteria, and that these criteria have proved acceptable to the lawyers at major patent conscious companies such as [...], that this will not blunt the defensive use of the patents and that any other IPR holders will be required to provide access to their technology on terms that are at least as favorable. The more wiggle room is allowed, the less likely it is that the intended result will be achieved. In particular the lawyer for company B is going to be looking to demonstrate their worth to management by demonstrating that they have successfully ensured that equally favorable terms will be available from othe companies. Another important case is the defensive patent or patent application which is understood to be complete garbage by everyone including the owner but can be finessed to establish a dominant position in a working group before it begins. The 'its my ball and I'm taking it home unless I get to bat first' gambit. Another way to tip the scales would be to specify whether the IPR regime is RAND or RANDZ in the charter and allow this to be changed by rechartering. We already make a limited IPR release when submitting an Internet Draft. I see two cases of interest: 1) The whole point of the proposal is to make the ideas covered by the IPR into a standard. 2) A proposal is made which incidentally happens to involve other IPR held by the submitter's company that the submitter is either not aware of or not aware of the connection. The second is the corner case concern which motivates a lot of the big company objections to up front declarations. But in practice the first point is much more frequent. If the first case holds I think the submitter should either state that this is a RAND proposal when they submit or get the necessary approvals to submitt as a proposal for RANDZ - IF ACCEPTED. If we get two RANDZ proposals and one thats only RAND we don't need to talk about the third one unless the IPR changes. ________________________________
From: Sam Hartman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tue 23/10/2007 9:07 AM To: Scott Brim Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: A priori IPR choices [Re: Third LastCall:draft-housley-tls-authz-extns] >>>>> "Scott" == Scott Brim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Scott> On 22 Oct 2007 at 17:46 -0400, Sam Hartman allegedly wrote: >> * Phil's proposal has been shot down prematurely in my opinion. >> I agree that his current version would not fly. However I do >> think there are working groups that could make conclusions >> about their patent policies and for which doing so would have >> helped the effort a lot. Scott> Working Groups have the freedom to do that if they wish. I Scott> don't want a simplistic edict from on high that all working Scott> groups must do so. Interactions between issues, technical Scott> and otherwise, are way too varied and potentially Scott> complicated for such shallow rule-making. I agree that forcing working groups to make a decision at the beginning would be bad. I think the you must decide part of Phil's proposal is one of the things that would have to go. Phil may argue that's the only value his proposal has; I disagree. >> Working through draft-housley-tls-authz-extns gave me a >> personal significant lack of confidence in our patent policies >> and whether they meet our goals and objectives. I also wonder >> whether our goals and objectives may have shifted somewhat >> since they were written. However I'm definitely uncomfortable >> with relying on our existing documents in any real dispute. Scott> I think the problem is that because we have a wide range of Scott> opinion and desired outcome, we cannot create simple rules, Scott> which means the difficult cases take a lot of discussion. Scott> I think that's important to preserve, in order to support Scott> the possibility of new outcomes. My lack of confidence had more to do with doubting that our policies would do what we want in court, concerns that there are ambiguities, lack of clarity and that sort of thing than that they allowed for discussion. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
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