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RE: Patents can be for good, not only evil

2007-10-29 16:21:39
Eric Burger wrote:
I specifically applied for patents underlying the technology behind RFC
4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third parties, who
are not part of the IETF process, from extracting royalties from someone
who implements MSCML or KPML.  

That was a waste of your time and money. Publication of those inventions by
you, at zero cost to you and others, would have been sufficient to prevent
someone else from trying to patent them. Next time, get good advice from a
patent lawyer on how to achieve your goals without paying for a patent.

Remember, just because *you* do not have IPR in an IETF standard does
not mean someone *else* has IPR in the standard.  If that someone else
does not participate in the IETF or, for that matter, happen to not
participate in the work group or, in reality, are not editors of a
document, they can fully apply their IPR against the standard once it
issues.

Right! And that's why every one of the FOSS-compatible patent grants to
IETF, W3C or OASIS includes defensive termination provisions. We also want
to protect standards against patent threats by third parties, and defensive
provisions are consistent with FOSS licenses. 

For those here who keep asking for protection against patents in standards,
there is no more effective technique than through a revised IPR policy that
prohibits patent-encumbered standards from gaining the IETF brand in the
first place.

/Larry


-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Burger [mailto:eburger(_at_)bea(_dot_)com]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 2:16 PM
To: Keith Moore; lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Patents can be for good, not only evil

I would offer that patents are NOT categorically evil.

Phil Zimmerman has applied for patents in ZRTP, specifically to ensure
that all implementations fully conform with the specification.  Cost to
license for a conformant specification?  $0.  Cost to not really provide
privacy but claim to be implementing ZRTP?  Costly!

I specifically applied for patents underlying the technology behind RFC
4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third parties, who
are not part of the IETF process, from extracting royalties from someone
who implements MSCML or KPML.  Cost to license?  $0.  Cost to sue
someone who infringes said third-party's IPR?  That depends, but at
least we raised the cost of shutting down an IETF standard.

Remember, just because *you* do not have IPR in an IETF standard does
not mean someone *else* has IPR in the standard.  If that someone else
does not participate in the IETF or, for that matter, happen to not
participate in the work group or, in reality, are not editors of a
document, they can fully apply their IPR against the standard once it
issues.

I like to have a little inoculation against that situation in the stuff
I submit.

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 4:04 PM
To: lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: When is using patented technology appropriate?

Lawrence Rosen wrote:
Keith Moore wrote:

For several reasons, it is difficult to imagine an IETF-wide
procedure that allows the existence of a patent to trump other
considerations of protocol feasibility and deployability:


Who suggested otherwise? It is not the existence of the patent that
matters, but its unavailability under license terms that allow
implementation in
*any* software.

_and_ its validity, _and_ its applicability, both of which can be
subjective and difficult to determine conclusively without long delays
and excessive expense.   so we have to make judgments.  and by "we" I
mean individuals participating in IETF, not IETF itself.
The more feasible and deployable the protocol, the more important will

be FOSS implementations.

only relative to other protocols in the same space.

granted that patents are the bane of any open standards-making
organization, because patents do exactly the opposite of what open
standards do.  at the same time, we can't let FUD about patents become a
denial of service attack to IETF efforts.

Keith


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