Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:42:55 +0200
From: Yoav Nir <synp71(_at_)live(_dot_)com>
Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP15291D6479F17C5A697960DB1AC0(_at_)phx(_dot_)gbl>
| If those people are unaware of the IPR claims,
| they're unable to steer the working group towards infringing technology.
No, the people are aware of all the technology, they just have no idea
there's any patents (or other IPR) involved. They can easily (and genuinely)
advocate some great new technology that would solve a problem, without
having the slightest idea that their company is planning on later asserting
its IPR and claiming royalties.
| I suspect that some companies are hiring people for their "IETF
| experience" and intentionally keeping them away from the R&D side of the
| company.
Yes, I think you're right, this has been happening for some time now.
| We may not like the idea of a professional IETF-er any more than people
| used to like the idea of a professional athlete.
I don't think that's a good analogy. There's nothing wrong in
principle with organisations having people whose job it is to interact
with all the appropriate SDOs (after all, that allows the actual R&D
people to do their jobs instead of constantly being side tracked by
nonsense like IETF IPR rules...) but for the IETF, too much of this is
not a good thing. The problem is that if the actual developers of
whatever is relevant are in a meeting when the technology is being discussed,
they (hopefully) know what are the real issues and problems, and what are
irrelevant side issues that don't really matter. The professional SDO
attendee tends not to be closely involved enough with the development
and reasons for it, and so will more often simply advocate their company's
way of doing things, regardless whether it is on a point where it really
matters, or one where it really doesn't.
In another reply, Thomas Narten <narten(_at_)us(_dot_)ibm(_dot_)com> said:
| And doing this could even be a violation of our rules (for the IPR holder at
| least), depending on the details.
Violation of the rules by whom? The excerpt you quoted clearly says that
people are not required to go do patent searches to find out whether IPR
might exists, so clearly the attendees (in the situation I postulated)
are not violating any rules.
And the company has (according to IETF theory anyway) no relationship with
the IETF at all - IETF rules and procedures cannot possibly be relevant to
random outside organisations. Note that the company does not accept the
IETF rules, or tick the box on the registration form, or however it is
done these days, and the company does not join any mailing lists etc - and
certainly is not participating in any discussions, just their unknowing
employees.
Or consider a slightly different scenario - consider a company with some
new (and just recently subject of a patent application) technology that
they'd (for obvious reasons) like to become widely used. The company then
hires a consultant (or two, or three) to evaluate possible future uses of
the technology. The consultants are told nothing about the patent application
(which after all, has no bearing on what they've been asked to consult about).
One (or perhaps more) of the consultants asks the company "Have you considered
submitting this to the IETF, it could solve a problem they're having ..."
to which the company replies "We know nothing about that, but we have no
objections if you think it would be useful for them".
The consultant (on his own dime) then attends an IETF meeting, and submits
this new technology to the IETF.
What rules do you think have been broken there? What rules could possibly
exist that would make a difference?
Perhaps you might believe that the consultant should have explicitly asked
the company if there were any patents or patent applications on this
technology? Perhaps he/she should have, and didn't. Or perhaps that
question was asked, and the company said no. That might have even been
truthful at the time - it might have been that very question that inspired
the company to file its patent application.
This is all very messy, and once again, dealing with all these issues is
way beyond what network engineers should even be attempting.
Simply make it clear that knowing about IPR, and licensing terms, allows
the IETF to build better protocols that are more useful to the network as
a whole, and so disclosing IPR to the IETF is a good thing to do. Those
companies (I suspect the majority, especially of the bigger ones) will
(and have in the past) comply, and file the relevant disclosure. The ones
that refuse are not likely to be swayed in any way by any IETF rules, and
particularly not ones that lack even a hint of any enforcement mechanism.
kre
ps: this will be my final message on this topic. I don't want to encourage,
or contribute to, even more IETF time wasting on non-engineering issues.