Harald,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this. As I recall, at a meeting with you and Leslie in January 2004, you told me about a proposal under consideration that involved the donation of a patented architecture to the IETF. You mentioned a group that wanted to donate the technology, but I don't know if that has progressed in the interim. By donation, I mean such things as pooling patents in order to give technology to the IETF at little or no cost (whether or not under license). ISOC was mentioned in this context. This came up again informally during a coffee break at the ISOC Advisory Comm. meeting in Barcelona where I recall some discussion of possible interoperability testbeds for purposes of IETF architecture deliberations.
It was my understanding that one motivating factor in the admin. restructuring process was the need to have a corporate entity to receive such donations of patents; ISOC also has some interest in this. While this notion hasn't been developed to any extent, as far as I am aware, there is an important kernel of thought here that needs to be addressed. Since the late 1980s when I first became involved in considering IPR policies for the IETF, I have been well aware of the need to be flexible with respect to copyright, patent and other rights and interests in an IETF context. Again, checks and balances are essential here.
Regards,
Patrice
----- Original Message ----- From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Patrice Lyons" <palyons@xxxxxxx>; "Joel M. Halpern"
<joel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-lyons-proposed-changes-statement-01.txt>
--On torsdag, oktober 21, 2004 08:10:07 -0400 Patrice Lyons <palyons@xxxxxxx> wrote:
In this context, there has been some talk of donation recently of patents for IETF, particularly a group of patents, for IETF purposes at little or no cost.
could you give a little more pointer here, please?
All the talk I've heard recently is about free/no-paperwork licensing of patents for use in implementing IETF protocols - I haven't heard anything about giving patents to the IETF.
But then, I am not party to all conversations.
Harald
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