On 6-okt-04, at 6:12, Scott W Brim wrote:
However, there appears to be rough consensus emerging that an IPR assertion is acceptable if any of the following are true:
- a license is explicitly not required.
- a license is explicitly free with no restrictions.
- a license is explicitly free with rights of "defensive suspension"
(what Harald calls "no first use").
This makes a lot of sense in cases where a patent is legit (for lack of a better word). However, the reason we're in such a big mess is that more and more companies are registering patents of questionable merit. This brings us right back to:
As Ted says, the IETF should stay out of passing judgment on the validity of claims and/or fighting patents. It's really way outside of our charter.
I gather that the US patent office pretty much rubber stamps patent applications in the IETF's area of interest because they don't know how to evaluate them. Maybe I'm being naive here, but it seems to me that some kind of clue transfer from the IETF to the US patent office would be beneficial to all except the patent lawyers who would then have to start to do actual work to make a living.
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