Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Pekka Savola]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, Dave Crocker wrote:
> Generally this thread seems to be seeking determinacy for a matter that can 
> only be made deterministic by a) ignoring IPR encumbrance, or b) rejecting 
> all IPR encumbrances.  The first is not compatible with IETF culture.  The 
> latter is not practical in some cases.
> 
> So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 
> current IETF policies?

I think the most effective thing would be to send a strong signal of some
kind: "If you patent technologies and give non-RF licenses, _do not expect
the technology be supported in IETF at all_".  Cannot adapt
internet-drafts with RAND terms as working group documents unless
explicitly chartered to do so etc. (Though there could be a case-by-case
appeals process or whatever -- if something really really major would show
up.)

A bad thing IETF could do (but not the worst luckily :-) is to give a
signal "Ok.. feel free to patent and give RAND licensing.. depending how
good it is, we might give it a standards status or we might not".  That
_encourages_ to do patents (or try to), and we want to avoid that.

That way, RAND and other restrictions would only be used to harass IETF
progress (and those of their competitors) with patents that they never
intend to go to standards.  But we can't avoid that anyway.

-- 
Pekka Savola "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy   not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security.  -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Dave Crocker]

At 11:15 AM 5/30/2002 -0400, Scott Brim wrote:
>and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
>RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

And Scott's questions become particularly comfortable if we translate them 
into questions about protocol efficiency.  That is, we consider a range of 
merits, rather than just stating flat rules about single decision attributes.

To underscore the point that Marshall has been making:

The IETF has a strong preference to use unencumbered technologies.  When 
there is a choice between encumbered and unencumbered, the working group 
includes encumbrance into the range of factors it treats as important for 
evaluating alternatives.

There are some unknowns about licensing.  Some holders of IPR are helpful 
to resolving that easily and quickly.  Others are more reticent.  That 
become a component of the evaluation about the IPR factor.

And so on.

Generally this thread seems to be seeking determinacy for a matter that can 
only be made deterministic by a) ignoring IPR encumbrance, or b) rejecting 
all IPR encumbrances.  The first is not compatible with IETF culture.  The 
latter is not practical in some cases.

So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 
current IETF policies?

d/


--
Dave Crocker 
TribalWise, Inc. 
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Dave Crocker]

At 12:54 PM 5/30/2002 +0100, Graham Klyne wrote:
>- can we identify (and agree) a "top N" problems that need fixing (for 
>some small N)?

We have have had IPR-related rules for a long time.

So let me suggest that this one question out of your list is the only one 
we should first focus on.

Even though I have been around a number of problematic IPR situations in 
the IETF, I have no idea what problems we think need fixing (for which 
there is any real fix possible, that is.)

d/


--
Dave Crocker 
TribalWise, Inc. 
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[John Stracke]

> one that's O(logN) with a non-RF license
>and
> one that's O(NlogN) with an RF license
>
>i probably wouldn't need to think very hard to go with the
>latter. simply because we'll see a lot more community good...

Right.  Standards exist so that we can get interoperability; expensive 
licenses limit interoperability.

/==\
|John Stracke|Principal Engineer   |
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.  |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.  |
|==|
|"The Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government." "What|
|form of government is that?" "A tautology."   |
\==/

RE: IPR Re: IETF 54 calendar (fwd)

[Rob Lanphier]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Tony Hain wrote:
> If what you are asking for is that for every proposal / i-d that shows
> up in the IETF, the IPR holder is automatically required to provide an
> RF license, you really don't understand the reason people bother with
> patents to begin with.

That makes about as much sense as saying:
"If what you are asking for is that for every passenger that gets on an
airplane, the passenger is automatically required to surrender any weapons
they may have, you really don't understand the reason people bother with
weapons to begin with."

The debate is already tricky enough without falsely accusing the other
side of naivety.  They often know *exactly* why people bother with
patents, but may not share the same goals.

In general, the W3C seems to be on the right track on this issue, though
it continues to be a very painful process, and is by no means complete.

See this page for more details:
http://www.w3.org/2001/ppwg/

Rob

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[RJ Atkinson]

On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 01:27 , Bill Strahm wrote:

>  I don't think the IETF can afford to keep a staff of
> lawyers working on determining the licencing statements of all of the
> standards being churned out.

Interesting, but actually no one suggested that.

I said that IETF's lawyer ought to create *1* template of "known to be
acceptable".  I did not say "have an lawyer review each proposal a 
company
might make", nor did anyone else.  I did not say "require companies to 
use
the known to be acceptable template" nor did anyone else.  Still having
such can help well-intentioned firms, which are trying to figure out what
*an* acceptable approach might look like, do something reasonable without
having to guess.

> That said, I don't think it would do any good anyway, lets say the IETF
> lawyer gives his Okey Dokie, then my company implements the standard 
> and a
> problem with the licencing terms comes up... Who do I go sue, the 
> IETF ???

See above.  The situation you outline (IETF lawyer reviews everything)
was NEVER proposed on this list.

Amateur lawyer might be amusing to some, but not to me.  Experience
is that amateur lawyering isn't terribly useful on an IETF mailing list.
Having an example template created by IETF's lawyer, whatever that might
consist of, could even help reduce amateur lawyering (though I'm not that
optimistic myself).

Ran
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Marshall Rose]

> Unfortunately, while we can compare proposals based on their complexity, 
> maybe even performance or overhead, there is, in reality, usually no way 
> to compare the actual licensing costs at the time a decision is made. At 
> least as far as I know, none of the non-free licensing statements on the 
> IETF web site contain any information on these terms, beyond vague 
> generalities. "Reasonable" is hardly a term with engineering precision.

i think the community has a lot of experience in seeing the costs of licensing. turn 
back the clock ten years and look at the rsa patent stuff... 

i'm sure lots of folks in different network areas have lots of similar examples. so, 
i'll go out on a limb and predict that, after a lot of community discussion, the 
concensus will come down to "non-RF licensing is very costly".

now, what does "very costly" mean? i'm not sure. we'll have to take it case by case. 
however, my gut tells me that if i'm comparing two algorithms, that are equivalent in 
most ways except that:

one that's O(logN) with a non-RF license
and
one that's O(NlogN) with an RF license

i probably wouldn't need to think very hard to go with the latter. simply because 
we'll see a lot more community good...

of course, ymmv, and that's fine too!

/mtr

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Bill Strahm]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, RJ Atkinson wrote:

>
> On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 09:48 , Melinda Shore wrote:
> > Here's one for starters: there's no guidance on how or whether to
> > treat differences in licensing terms for competing proposals.  It
> > would be nice to be able to say that all other things being more-or-
> > less equal we should prefer technology which will be available
> > royalty-free,
>
>   Agree.
>
>   My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying that
> the first
> choice is to use unencumbered technology if it can be made to work,
> second choice
> is encumbered but royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and
> reasonable
> licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording might be
> for that last).
>
>   And it would be good to have a conventional template for the
> royalty-free
> licence -- one that the IETF's legal counsel has reviewed and believes
> is acceptable
> for IETF purposes.
I disagree with this, I don't think the IETF can afford to keep a staff of
lawyers working on determining the licencing statements of all of the
standards being churned out.

That said, I don't think it would do any good anyway, lets say the IETF
lawyer gives his Okey Dokie, then my company implements the standard and a
problem with the licencing terms comes up... Who do I go sue, the IETF ???

I hope not, but that could be creating a legal liability for the IETF if
its lawyers make statements on the licencing terms of protocols...

Bill

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Scott Brim]

On Thu, May 30, 2002 08:59:50AM -0700, Marshall Rose wrote:
> > >   My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
> > >   that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
> > >   can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
> > >   royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
> > >   licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
> > >   might be for that last).
> > 
> > and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has
> > a RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?
> 
> working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity,
> functionality, and so on. licensing is another cost. given the amount
> of traffic on this topic, it appears that licensing is a very heavy
> cost. this may provide an answer to your question...

Given the content of the traffic on this topic, there is a range of
opinions about how heavy a cost it is -- which is what I wanted to bring
out.  

We can, if we like, declare that all standards must be unencumbered, but
by doing so we'll just make the IETF less relevant.  That ideal is left
over from the days when everyone was working for the common good -- in
some working groups it's wrong, and in others hard to apply.  Right now
there is no explicit guidance for working groups.  Smart ones figure out
creative solutions on their own.  I'd like to see some prose added to
the working group guidelines, not to lay out explicit rules, but to give
groups a framework for making decisions about standards and intellectual
property in the modern world.

..Scott

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Henning Schulzrinne]

 >> and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but
 >> has a RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?
 >
 >

Marshall Rose wrote:

 > working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity,
 > functionality, and so on. licensing is another cost. given the amount
 > of traffic on this topic, it appears that licensing is a very heavy
 > cost. this may provide an answer to your question...
 >

Unfortunately, while we can compare proposals based on their complexity, 
maybe even performance or overhead, there is, in reality, usually no way 
to compare the actual licensing costs at the time a decision is made. At 
least as far as I know, none of the non-free licensing statements on the 
IETF web site contain any information on these terms, beyond vague 
generalities. "Reasonable" is hardly a term with engineering precision.

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[John Stracke]

>Thus, this mechanism offers almost no remedy or protection.

I didn't say it was the optimal policy.  :-) Someone implied that the IETF 
didn't have an IPR policy, and I pointed to it.

/\
|John Stracke|Principal Engineer |
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.|
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.|
||
|This space intentionally not left blank.|
\/

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Henning Schulzrinne]

> RFC-2026, section 4.1.2 ("Draft Standard"):
> 
>  If patented or otherwise controlled technology is required for
>  implementation, the separate implementations must also have resulted
>  from separate exercise of the licensing process.

The problem is that very few standards make it to Draft. As the old saw 
goes, "the Internet is running on proposed standards". (A more accurate 
description would be "on Internet drafts and proposed standards"). 
Statistical details were presented at the last plenary.

Thus, this mechanism offers almost no remedy or protection. It would 
also be interesting to know if this has ever been checked in reality, 
even for the few standards that have made it that far. Also, this does 
not help if the two licensing arrangements are between two big 
corporations that have blanket mutual licensing deals, as is common. 
This says very little about whether a smaller company, a competitor or 
an open-source implementation could get a license.

RE: IPR at IETF 54

[Christian Huitema]

> From: Scott Brim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> 
> On Thu, May 30, 2002 10:59:27AM -0400, RJ Atkinson wrote:
> > My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
> > that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
> > can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
> > royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
> > licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
> > might be for that last).
> 
> and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
> RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

The de-facto policy in these cases has been to choose the
less-encumbered technology as the standard (i.e. MUST implement), and
the more-encumbered technology an option (MAY implement). For example,
when RSA was still encumbered and Diffie-Hellman was not, the IETF
settled on making Diffie-Hellman mandatory, RSA optional. Maybe this
should be documented.

-- Christian Huitema

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[John Stracke]

>> ... we should prefer technology which will be available
>> royalty-free, but that's not current policy
>
>Whose policy?

RFC-2026, section 4.1.2 ("Draft Standard"):

 If patented or otherwise controlled technology is required for
 implementation, the separate implementations must also have resulted
 from separate exercise of the licensing process.

/=\
|John Stracke|Principal Engineer  |
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]   |Incentive Systems, Inc. |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own. |
|=|
|I am Homer of Borg. Prepare to be assi... Mmm, doughnuts!|
\=/

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Marshall Rose]

> > My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
> > that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
> > can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
> > royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
> > licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
> > might be for that last).
> 
> and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
> RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity, functionality, and so 
on. licensing is another cost. given the amount of traffic on this topic, it appears 
that licensing is a very heavy cost. this may provide an answer to your question...

/mtr

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Carsten Bormann]

 > ... we should prefer technology which will be available
> royalty-free, but that's not current policy

Whose policy?

Some WGs have a policy (or are actually chartered) to develop deployable 
protocols.  Where a legal issue would make a protocol non-deployable, we have to 
look elsewhere.  (Of course, that only applies to parts of the IETF -- maybe one 
reason why an IETF-wide policy may be harder to come up with than e.g. in the W3C.)

Oh, and I would rather avoid the confusing term royalty-free.  Imagine a 
"technology" that is licensed royalty-free to end-users (i.e., every single user 
has to pay a lawyer to get a license contract in place, which then is 
royalty-free).  Royalty-free, but useless.
Lawyer-free/paperwork-free would be the more useful criterion.

Gruesse, Carsten

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Scott Brim]

On Thu, May 30, 2002 10:59:27AM -0400, RJ Atkinson wrote:
>   My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
>   that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
>   can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
>   royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
>   licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
>   might be for that last).

and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[RJ Atkinson]

On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 09:48 , Melinda Shore wrote:
> Here's one for starters: there's no guidance on how or whether to
> treat differences in licensing terms for competing proposals.  It
> would be nice to be able to say that all other things being more-or-
> less equal we should prefer technology which will be available
> royalty-free,

Agree.

My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying that 
the first
choice is to use unencumbered technology if it can be made to work, 
second choice
is encumbered but royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and 
reasonable
licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording might be
for that last).

And it would be good to have a conventional template for the 
royalty-free
licence -- one that the IETF's legal counsel has reviewed and believes 
is acceptable
for IETF purposes.

Creating a separate open [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list for these 
discussions
would also be helpful, IMHO.  Perhaps the IETF Chair could arrange such ?

Regards,

Ran
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Melinda Shore]

At 08:12 PM 5/29/02 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>And overall I'm pretty darn sick and tired of wasting my time in WG/BOF sessions 
>where all I get is a series of undiscussed presentations that could have been done in 
>I-Ds which I could have read before the meeting.

So don't go to the session.

One thing that's pretty clear is 1) that there's a problem, and 2)
nobody's exactly certain what the problem is.  I don't think that
putting some effort into trying to scope the problem is a bad idea.

Here's one for starters: there's no guidance on how or whether to
treat differences in licensing terms for competing proposals.  It
would be nice to be able to say that all other things being more-or-
less equal we should prefer technology which will be available
royalty-free, but that's not current policy and I have absolutely
no clue if there are legal problems with doing it.  (It might
also help damp some conduct problems that are arising out of people
being overly enthusiastic in promoting their encumbered technology.)
I wouldn't expect questions like that to be answered at an IPR
session, but I hope that issues like it will be raised.

Melinda

Re: IPR at IETF 54

[Graham Klyne]

At 02:58 PM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
>At 09:10 PM 5/29/2002 +0100, Graham Klyne wrote:
>>At 08:53 AM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
>>> Certainly we do not have to worry about whether there is 
>>> sufficient community interest in IPR.  What we do not have a good sense 
>>> of, perhaps, is what problems need to be resolved.
>>
>>How do we best approach the design of Internet technologies so that 
>>IPR-related obstructions to their deployment will be minimized?
>
>Excellent question.
>
>However...
>
>It is not clear that an entire week of discussion would be fruitful for 
>that sort of deep and broad requirement for substantial process and 
>concept invention, nevermind a couple of hours at the end of a long 
>work-week, with little group preparation.

Of course, but I didn't want to hog the mailing list ;-)

I was trying to follow your lead and focus on the real issue rather than 
wandering in the woods hand-wringing about the process for fixing an 
unspecified problem.  We all know there's an IPR problem facing Internet 
development, don't we?  But do we know (or, more importantly, agree) what 
the problem actually is?  Or are?

So starting from the question above, I would go on to ask:

- do we agree what constitutes IPR for the purpose of this debate?

- what are the demonstrable cases of IPR obstructing Internet technology 
deployment?  Looking for reasonably solid evidence here, not just 
hand-waving vaguenesses.

- are there any demonstrable cases of IPR actually promoting the deployment 
of new Internet technology?

- can we identify (and agree) a "top N" problems that need fixing (for some 
small N)?

- can we identify (and agree) things that we definitely do not want to change?

- what specialist legal input do we need to properly understand the 
identified problems?

Maybe addressing such questions would go the same way as all other debates 
on the topic.  But if we don't try to focus we'll never know.  I was trying 
to support your call, which I understood to be for such focus.

#g



---
Graham Klyne
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>