On Fri, 31 May 2002 Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2002 08:40:17 +0300, Pekka Savola said:
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.
Patents *in and of themselves* are not a Bad Thing. As far as the IETF goes,
the problem only arises when the patent is used to enforce a restrictive
licensing policy.
Can anybody think of a reason the IETF should object to patented tech *per
se*,
as opposed to objecting to *hard-to-license* patented tech (the latter I think
we have consensus as being a Bad Thing)...
Some reasons have been given already about the evilness of (almost) all
patents.
I'll add one that hasn't been widely discussed.
The patent holder is in charge of the licensing. So he could do e.g.:
- write so ambiguous licensing terms nobody has the courage to implement
the spec without long, long consultation with lawyers
- the licensing terms could have a few (intentionally or unintentionally)
clauses that can afterwards interpreted differently *)
- change the license afterwards
*) an example of this is:
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/ISI-NGTRANS.txt, specifically:
--8<--
[...] If
SRI's submission (or portions thereof) is accepted and becomes part of
the IETF standard, then SRI will grant royalty-free permission under
such patents for both commercial and non-commercial uses, to the extent
_necessary for compliance_ with the standard. [...]
--8<--
(underlining mine)
This can be interpreted that everyone implementing a MAY or SHOULD in the
specification could be blamed for infringing the licensing terms
afterwards.
Fun, eh?
.. If it takes a lawyer to write (or understand) licensing terms, they're
probably too complex ..
--
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