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.
All of this is pretty much the same as for Domain Name IP. The "US nexus" of the IETF is obviously the problem (cf. RFC 3774 diagnosis). Because 4% of the world population has a problem with the demeanor of the USPTO (the same as 4% of the world population had a problem with the ACPA (anti cybersquatting act) unexpected effects. In the domain name area the solution came from the WIPO . The solution for IETF Standards protection can only come from them too. For DNs the solution was that TLDs could not be registered as common humanity goods and that conflicts should use $200 arbitration first (UDRP) instead of $ millons actions. For IETF the only solution is to declare internet standards common humanity goods (the same as languages: nobody has (yet?) patented English or language) and to set-up an appropriate low cost conflict management procedure to acknowledge the rights of the real inventors.
However, in the DN area, ICANN tried to be international and level with Govs and ITU, dialoguing with them.Making them aware of the problem. IETF is not. Today UN has a mission given by 190 Chief of States to clarify the Internet Governance issues. The first issue for them is to define what the Internet may be. Then what is Governance. And then what is the Internet Governance. IETF has its basic definition of the Internet (upper "I"): the adherence to its Internet documents. Mr. Kummer (the head of the UN mission, directly reporting to the General Secretary) is not repeated that (so he cannot list what canbe missing in these documents). Governance means independence first (this is why the form of governance of the Internet can only be an intergovernance and not an US nexus dominance), Mr. Kummer is not explained and technically documented that. Internet Governance therefore means that IETF documents MUST be independent from any influence (and patents). Mr. Kummer MUST be hammered that need. But all this work MUST address users real needs, so innovation MUST be fostered: this is the whole problem of the aging Internet system: people must be able to come with ideas and to get recognition - not "wrong" barking or to be stolen by a big US Corporation patent. And this is something we MUST discuss with Mr. Kummer, and other SDOs.
If we do not do it, nobody will do it because politicians have been burnt and think "this is technical, this is not our cup of tea". The same they said before "the Internet is the cup of tea of ICANN", until Stuart Lynn wrote them, calling for help and telling them his problems. IETF is not in the business of ruling the world (RFC 1531).
If we continue keeping this internal and not making the world aware (all the more than they want to know) the result will be an Internet balkanisation because people will develop US nexus/patent free solutions - like the Chinese IPv9 political testing. The IETF problem is not its incorporation (young entrepreneurs always come with the "incorporation first" mistake - incorporation is the last detail). The IETF problem is voluntaries motivating deliveries. If the deliveries are not motivating its members, there is no more IETF and the debate has ended.
To be motivating, the IETF deliveries must match today's world challenges, not 1980. They must be common humanity goods, not ways for some cute lawyer to use voluntary propositions to register blocking patents. They must get a proper level of recognition for their authors. That recognition must also serve to attract sponsors and address the IETF budgetary problems. If this is achieved the adminstrative solution to port it will then be obvious. Otherwise why to waste time with IETF?
jfc
NB. As I copy this mail to non-IETF members here are some additional information:
http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3774.txt?number=3774
This RFC describes the internal mood and problems of the IETF
http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3716.txt?number=3716
This RFC describes the relations with its direct contributors
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-lyons-proposed-changes-statement-00.txt
This draft proposes an administrative response but is interesting in giving historical and cultural information.
To my knowledge no similar evaluation has been carried on the relations of IETF with its publics (users, operators, Governments, other SDOs) nor on its deliverables and their adequation to the market, societal and governmental demands.
IRT "intergovernance", I consider the interest of a draft on this key matter. This would be a major task and a big workload which makes me hesitate. Also it necessarily involves the four governance poles (technical, societal, economical and political) and spanns across most of the world ecosystems, while there is no ad-hoc structure to help dialoging on the issue. To start analyzing the problem I prepared a questionnaire and a mailing list (http://intergovernance.org/quest.htm) a few have already started responding. This was a quick work a few months ago. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
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