RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?

--On Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:15 AM -0400 Powers 
Chuck-RXCP20 <Chuck(_dot_)Powers(_at_)motorola(_dot_)com> wrote:
> I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why
> allowing some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes
> sense. Since quite often IPR disclosures are made for a
> specific ID in a specific working group, if that WG ultimately
> does not choose that technology (and the ID expires), I am
> curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR
> disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are),
> it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or
> working group, and would therefore have little use but to add
> to the growing list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database.
>
> I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on
> file, apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced
> the IETF IPR database is the right place to hold onto IPR
> disclosures simply for historical purposes that only apply to
> technology that will never see the light of day in an IETF
> standard, since the IETF doesn't see any value in keeping the
> IDs that they applied to in the first place.
Chuck,

As a long-term advocate of taking the provisions that I-Ds 
expire after six months --at least to the extent of having _all_ 
rights in them revert to the author(s)-- I think what you are 
saying above is profoundly sensible.
However, the IPR WG, in its wisdom, has concluded, in some 
phrasing that was changed fairly late in the game, that the IETF 
Trust should get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of 
subsequent uses of them and their content, with no time limit. 
That phrasing passed through IETF Last Call and IESG signoff and 
is the context in which the Trust is now writing rules.   It 
seems to me that, if the IETF (through the Trust) is going to be 
in a position to grant rights to use material in I-Ds forever, 
and if rights to use code in I-Ds (even for the first time) 
don't expire after six months or some other closed period, then, 
logically, we are obligated to keep the IPR disclosures forever.
I suppose that, if I were a paranoid lawyer (and IANAL, even if 
I'm paranoid about these sorts of things) and giving advice to a 
participant in the IETF, I'd recommend that an IPR disclosure be 
filed on every single I-D, indicating that any licenses I might 
grant were good for only six months after the posting of the 
last I-D in the relevant series unless it were approved for RFC 
publication.  What that would do to the system we seem to be 
making for ourselves would be interesting, at least.
   john

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