As I've mentioned to others, since I'm one of the people who will have
to judge the consensus on this question, my comments will remain
strictly based on the facts of the events as I know them and on the
relevant IETF procedures. It is up to the IETF community to decide on
what the appropriate course of action shall be. That said, I have some
comments and questions:
On 1/26/12 3:31 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
It seems to me that a key question here is whether the original
author's decision to not disclose was made in violation of
company policy or whether the sequence of posting the I-D,
getting the document through the WG and Last Call, and then
posting the disclosure is a matter of company policy.
We were told by the other company employees who facilitated the
disclosures, at the time of the disclosures, that this was strictly an
individual's failure to comply with the IETF IPR Policy, that the author
in question claims not to have understood the IETF IPR Policy, and that
the company proceeded to make these disclosures as soon as it discovered
that this IPR existed. I have no information to contradict that claim.
Consequently, I believe that at least the following should be
required:
(1) Revision of the IPR statement so it identifies the
responsible individual by name, department, and title. I do not
believe that the rather anonymous "Director of Licensing" is
compliant with the intent of the IPR disclosure rules. I will
leave it to the lawyers to advise on whether a document issued
without the name (not just title) of a responsible individual
would even be held to be valid in the various jurisdictions in
which the patent might be recognized.
Are you asking that the IPR statements be updated with the name,
department, and title of the "Director of Licensing", or that of the
author of the documents and patents in question? It seems to me that the
former is a procedural question that is separate from the disposition of
these particular documents, and seems like a reasonable requirement for
any IPR disclosure. If you're asking for the latter, are you asking that
the sanction against the author be a new obligation on the author?
Section 6 of RFC 3979 clearly says, "A participant's obligation to make
a disclosure is also considered satisfied if the IPR owner or the
participant's employer or sponsor makes an appropriate disclosure in
place of the participant doing so."
(2) A request to the company involved for someone who can
formally speak for that company to publicly clarify that this
sequence of behavior occurred in violation of company policy.
If there are internal rewards to individuals for filing and/or
being awarded patents, I assume that a decision that the actions
violate company policy would cause such awards to be withheld in
this case, even though the IETF would have no way to verify
whether or not that occurred.
The IETF Chair has in the past sent messages to companies to inquire
about their handling of IPR disclosures, so I imagine such a message
could be sent if the IETF community desires it.
(3) A request to the company involved to remove the reciprocity
clause from the license stated in the disclosure statement. As
a show of good faith, they should agree to derive no benefit
from the patent other than what praise accrues from having it
awarded.
I'll ask to bring this topic up with the IETF attorney. I am pretty sure
we can *ask* that they do this as a show of good faith. I am also pretty
certain that we can't negotiate the terms of a license agreement.
(4) Removal of the offending individual from the list of authors
to the acknowledgments with text similar to that suggested by
Adrian. Unless the company involved is willing to provide the
clarification suggested in (2) above, and possibly the license
modification suggested in (3) above, all names of authors
associated with that company should be removed to the
acknowledgements and the company affiliation explicitly
identified there. In either case, this should be viewed as a
response to a policy violation and not entangled with any more
general discussion of listed authors on I-Ds or RFCs.
Of course, removal of individual document editors is well within the
rights and responsibilities of the chairs, so if this is the consensus
of the IETF, I am sure it can be done. I would like you to elaborate on
the issue of the authors who are employees of the company but *not* the
author of the patent in question. Are you saying that their names should
be removed because, as co-workers of the author in question, they ought
to have known (or been more diligent in confirming) that the IPR existed
and therefore should be sanctioned for failing to comply with the IPR
rules, or are you saying that this is a sanction that should be levied
against the company and therefore its employees? I will note that RFC
3979 does not put a responsibility on individual participants to go
discover IPR that may exist, nor does it make any overt requirements of
companies since it applies only to the individual participants in the
IETF (caveat the recognitions in sections 6.6 and 7).
(5) Unless the clarification suggested in (2) can be provided,
each IETF participant who is associated with the relevant
company and who is in an IETF-related leadership or
decision-making position (WG Chairs; Editors; IESG, IAB, IAOC,
Nomcom, members; etc.) should be asked to make a conscientious
personal review as to whether this type of action sufficiently
compromises his or her position that resignation or some other
action would be appropriate and, as appropriate, to review IETF
policies with whatever management chains are relevant. I am
_not_ suggesting that anyone be asked to resign, only that they
engage in careful consideration of the issues and their
implications.
I believe this last one is outside of the scope of the decisions the
IETF has to take regarding the disposition of the particular documents.
It may indeed be reasonable for every IETF participant to review the
policies and actions of their own employer as they relate to IETF
participation and make a conscientious decision whether they can
continue to participate in the IETF, whatever their role, given those
policies and procedures.
pr
--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102
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