- From: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd <dee3@torque.pothole.com>
- Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 09:14:43 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
- cc: dee3@torque.pothole.com
There have been statements that the IETF requires Royalty Free licensing before it "includes" patented technology in a standard. This is obviously false. (However, I would like to make it clear that I think the patent system, particularly the US Patent system as it relates to software is a monster out of control.) For example, the IETF does lots of standards of the form, how to send Internet Protocol (IP) packets over X for various X technologies. Should it refuse to do so because X is patented? Ethernet was patented and the Internet probably wouldn't exist if IP had not been sent over Ethernet. Early IETF email security standards used RSA which was patented. (Admittedly, the IETF used its barganing leverage to get the RSAREF package released for royalty free use but that was only for limited non-commercial applications.) Of course the IETF prefers unrestricted / royalty free technoloy and if it can't get that, technology with reasonable and non-discrimintory licensing. And the IETF has changed many standards under development to avoid patents or patent claims that were discovered or announced. But there are many different ways in which patented technology can be included in a standard, many different shades of licensing, etc., and the IETF's current procedures carefully avoid painting itself into a box if the use of some patented technology turns out to be essential or advisable. For example, the IETF could see it as being in its interest for there to be a good standard, compatible with other IETF standards, for you to format messages sent over some proprietary system that is licensed in an unreasonable fashion. That said, it is true that the W3C has a smaller range of standards types, almost entirely at the application level, while the IETF has to accomodate a much broader range. The current IETF policy is stated in RFC 2026 <ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2026.txt>, particularly section 10. I have pasted the most relevant part of Section 10 at the end of this message. Thanks, Donald ===================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd dee3@torque.pothole.com 155 Beaver Street +1 508-634-2066(h) Milford, MA 01757 USA +1 508-261-5434(w) [Note: The IESG is the Internet Engineering Steering Group which is the body within the IETF which makes final standardization decisions.] 10.3.2. Standards Track Documents (A) Where any patents, patent applications, or other proprietary rights are known, or claimed, with respect to any specification on the standards track, and brought to the attention of the IESG, the IESG shall not advance the specification without including in the document a note indicating the existence of such rights, or claimed rights. Where implementations are required before advancement of a specification, only implementations that have, by statement of the implementors, taken adequate steps to comply with any such rights, or claimed rights, shall be considered for the purpose of showing the adequacy of the specification. (B) The IESG disclaims any responsibility for identifying the existence of or for evaluating the applicability of any claimed copyrights, patents, patent applications, or other rights in the fulfilling of the its obligations under (A), and will take no position on the validity or scope of any such rights. (C) Where the IESG knows of rights, or claimed rights under (A), the IETF Executive Director shall attempt to obtain from the claimant of such rights, a written assurance that upon approval by the IESG of the relevant Internet standards track specification(s), any party will be able to obtain the right to implement, use and distribute the technology or works when implementing, using or distributing technology based upon the specific specification(s) under openly specified, reasonable, non-discriminatory terms. The Working Group proposing the use of the technology with respect to which the proprietary rights are claimed may assist the IETF Executive Director in this effort. The results of this procedure shall not affect advancement of a specification along the standards track, except that the IESG may defer approval where a delay may facilitate the obtaining of such assurances. The results will, however, be recorded by the IETF Executive Director, and made available. The IESG may also direct that a summary of the results be included in any RFC published containing the specification. 10.3.3 Determination of Reasonable and Non-discriminatory Terms The IESG will not make any explicit determination that the assurance of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms for the use of a technology has been fulfilled in practice. It will instead use the normal requirements for the advancement of Internet Standards to verify that the terms for use are reasonable. If the two unrelated implementations of the specification that are required to advance from Proposed Standard to Draft Standard have been produced by different organizations or individuals or if the "significant implementation and successful operational experience" required to advance from Draft Standard to Standard has been achieved the assumption is that the terms must be reasonable and to some degree, non-discriminatory. This assumption may be challenged during the Last-Call period. 10.4. Notices (A) Standards track documents shall include the following notice: "The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat." (B) The IETF encourages all interested parties to bring to its attention, at the earliest possible time, the existence of any intellectual property rights pertaining to Internet Standards. For this purpose, each standards document shall include the following invitation: "The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive Director." (C) The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included in all ISOC standards-related documentation: "Copyright (C) The Internet Society (date). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE." (D) Where the IESG is aware at the time of publication of proprietary rights claimed with respect to a standards track document, or the technology described or referenced therein, such document shall contain the following notice: "The IETF has been notified of intellectual property rights claimed in regard to some or all of the specification contained in this document. For more information consult the online list of claimed rights."
Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 09:16:46 UTC