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Re: Last Call: <draft-polk-ipr-disclosure-03.txt> (Promoting Compliance with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Disclosure Rules) to Informational RFC

2012-05-22 17:21:25
Hi Stephan, thanks for the feedback and sorry about the slow reply.

On 4/30/12 11:19 AM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
Hi,
Here are a few comments to this draft.
Stephan

(1) Section 3.1, final paragraph.  An IETF disclosure has to be made
against a Contribution.  In the case described in this paragraph, the
Contribution may not have been made at the time of the Disclosure request,
and, therefore, it would be impossible to make a Disclosure.  For example,
if someone wants to discuss a technology verbally, you cannot make an IPR
disclosure before the words have been uttered.  I would remove this
paragraph.  Alternatively, limit it to "materials you plan to make
available at the meeting" in the sprit it of section 4.1.

I see your point: one can't realistically be expected to file a
disclosure before making a Contribution. Tim and I will discuss together
how we'd like to make this clearer. One possibility is to use a less
formal method, e.g., providing information about known IPR in the
materials to be presented or posting to the relevant discussion list
ahead of time (rather than filing a formal disclosure).

(2) Section 3.2, "silence may be interpreted as a weak "No".".  This
statement is IMO not supported by the IETF patent policy, and should
therefore be removed.  Generally speaking, any additional burden to
non-Contributors beyond making them aware of the voluntary disclosure
opportunity IMP constitutes a policy change and must be avoided.

I think you're right that absence of evidence can't be interpreted as
evidence of absence. If Tim agrees, we'll stike that sentence.

(3) Section 3.3.  I would replace "author" with "authors and other
Contributors".  Or "known Contributors", "prominent Contributors", or
something like this.  It is entirely possible, and in fact not uncommon,
that non-author Contributors influence the technology choices of I-Ds.
One possible metric for identifying some of these Contributors would be a
review of the Acknowledgement section many I-Ds include.  I see this
mentioned in section 3.4; I would shift (or duplicate?) the burden of
double-checking with Contributors to the WG chairs as WGLC.

Your suggestion of "authors and other Contributors" seems right.

(4) Section 4.2.  Suggest to include Contributors in the spirit of comment
(3) above.

Agreed.

(5) Section A.1.  The email has a logical structure, but sometimes a
logical structure may not have the best effect.  As written, people will
probably not read it in its entirety, but will give up once its clear that
it includes legalese.  Suggest to move the final paragraph "As FOO WG
chairs" to the top, and put the formal justification stuff at the end.

(6) Section A.2: I would substitute "Dear FOO WG" with "Dear FOO WG and
especially authors and Contributors:"

(7) Section A.2, third paragraph, sentence "We will not be able to advance
this document to the next stage until we have received a reply from each
author and listed contributor."  If this sentence starts appearing with
some consistency in IETF WGs, then we have a de-facto policy change
(requiring affirmative negative declarations).  Suggest to soften the
language: "we may not be able to advance" or "it does not appear to be
sensible to us to advance"

(8) Section A.2, fourth paragraph: I would express this along the
following: "you are reminded of your opportunity for a voluntary IPR
disclosure under BCP79 section xxx.  Unless you want to make such a
voluntary disclosure, please do not reply."

(9) Section A.3, see previous comments (7) and (8).
 
(10) Section A.4, see previous comment (7)

(11) Section A.5, see previous comment (7)

Thanks for those suggestions. We'll look at those sample messages again,
but on a first look I think all your points are spot-on.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/