On 4 apr 2007, at 00.45, Mark Brown wrote:
Harald,
I want to apologize again for screwing up the IPR disclosure process.
Normal IPR disclosure process is to alert the IETF community via
the IETF
website that a patent has been filed. I mistakenly thought that
adding the
boilerplate IPR statement at the top of the ID was sufficient to
say what
needed to be said. However, I don't think IETF requires the
disclosure of
an unpublished patent application.
I believe that is required even for patent applications. RFC 3979
talks about patent applications in several places.
I finally made my disclosure on the IETF website (what I mistakenly
thought
was a second disclosure) after my patent got published. And, in all
honesty, even this disclosure got delayed because I sought advice.
Please
note that the filing's publication, the delay, and the IPR
disclosure all
happened after the last IETF approval for the ID. The right thing
to do is
to use the IETF website the very day your file your first ID, and
not hope
that the verbiage atop the ID will somehow disclose that IPR
filings are in
progress.
Yes, filing IPR disclosures as soon as possible is what the rules says.
As a result of my mistakes, the IETF withdrew approval of the ID and
explained the process to me. That's fair. But please keep in mind
that
even for important things, it's easy to make mistakes your first time
through a process.
That is understandable. However, I believe it is in the best
interest for the IETF community to put only one specification on the
standards track to solve a particular problem. Some claim that it is
possible to write a new document to address authorization in TLS
without infringing on your patent. Thus, if these patents are
problematic for TLS implementations, I think it is better to not
publish this as a standards track document, and encourage alternative
solutions to be published on the standards track.
/Simon
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