Intellectual Property of the IETF BOF (INTPROP)

Reported by Ken Hayward/Bell Northern Research


Geoff Mulligan/SunLabs Presentation

SKIP was developed, patented and taken to the IP Security Working Group
(IPSEC), but the IETF patent policy in RFC 1602 was a roadblock.  The
license that was prepared read that SKIP could be licensed free for
non-commercial use with a US$99 one time fee for commercial use but that
the license must be adhered to.  The point is now moot for SKIP, as the
patent has since been given to the public domain.  However, this raised
the issue as to whether a priori patent protection might be better than
having later patents show up after an RFC is completed.  It was pointed
out that even a patent search would not help since it does not catch
patents that have been filed but not granted.

There was a lot of discussion following Geoff's presentation.  What
happens if something that is free for non-commercial use is incorporated
into something else that is free, then someone takes that second
``free'' and turns it into commercial?  The first ``successful''
transfer of patent rights to ISOC may generate a precedent, but that has
not happened yet.


Intellectual Property Mechanisms

Peter Berger of Luce McQuillin Corporation presented the following
outline.

   o Questions that need to be answered
      -  What are the goals
      -  What vehicle fits those goals
      -  What is feasible
      -  What are the owership issues
   o Goals
      -  Identify creations of the IETF as such
      -  Aggressively prevent vendors from exclusively appropriating
         community creations
      -  Create more incentives for vendors to follow RFCs and other
         standards
      -  Added from an attendee:  Ensure availability to community
   o Types
      -  Patent
      -  Trade secret
      -  Copyright
      -  Trademark
   o Patent
      -  Have absolute dominion over all implementation of a given
         mechanism for 17 years
      -  Expensive to obtain
      -  Practically difficult due to incremental nature of IETF work
      -  Politically unlikely that employers of IETF members would allow
         the IETF to patent work of employees without a fight
   o Trade Secret
      -  Not here!
   o Copyright
      -  Exists from the moment pen is put to paper (or otherwise)
      -  Applicable in any country that has signed the Berne Convention
      -  Protects expression of idea, but not idea as such
      -  Meets two of the goals
   o Ownership Question
   o Trademark
      -  Protects what you call something
      -  Protects only ``fanciful names''
      -  Development of trademarks might give the IETF more leverage
         over vendors


How can we enforce a requirement for acknowledgement?  (Some books
``lift'' large portions of RFCs without acknowledgement.)  If someone
has text to suggest for an RFC boilerplate, send it to Jon Postel as an
expression of a goal and then ISOC could choose to have a lawyer reword
it.


Goals of Potential Changes

   o Give credit where credit is due, especially by external
     (re)publishers.

   o Do not break the process.

   o Determine current legal status of documents.  What happened to
     previous counsel's advice?

   o Determine status of patented technology.

   o Prevent hostile, exclusive appropriation of community property.

   o Determine who is in charge of legal issues and who we want in
     charge, if anyone.


Formation of a Working Group

A straw vote was taken to find out how many attendees felt that this
group should form a working group.  A few were unsure, several were sure
a working group should be formed and one person felt that it should not
become a working group.

Peter Berger was drafted to define the charter, etc., and a mailing
list, intprop-wg@lm.com, was set up.  The output of the working group
will be to publish an Informational RFC suggesting changes to achieve
the goals listed above.