Keith Moore wrote: > For several reasons, it is difficult to imagine an IETF-wide procedure > that allows the existence of a patent to trump other considerations of > protocol feasibility and deployability: Who suggested otherwise? It is not the existence of the patent that matters, but its unavailability under license terms that allow implementation in *any* software. The more feasible and deployable the protocol, the more important will be FOSS implementations. Who's trumping who? /Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Moore [mailto:moore@xxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 1:31 PM > To: lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx > Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: When is using patented technology appropriate? > > Lawrence Rosen wrote: > > Steven Bellovin wrote: > > > >> Right. Any IPR policy has to acknowledge the fact that relevant > >> patents can be owned by non-troll non-participants. (Too many > >> negatives there -- what I'm saying is that IETFers don't know of all > >> patents in the space, and there are real patent owners who care about > >> their patents, even though they aren't trolls.) > >> > > > > I agree, but I suggest that our new IPR policy ought to set expectations > for > > how we deal procedurally with such outside encumbrances when discovered. > The > > defensive termination provision in most contributors' IETF patent grants > can > > also help to protect our specifications from trolls and some third-party > > patent owners, depending upon how those grants are worded. > > > For several reasons, it is difficult to imagine an IETF-wide procedure > that allows the existence of a patent to trump other considerations of > protocol feasibility and deployability: > > - Many patents are believed to be invalid or indefensible. IETF as an > organization cannot get in a position of deciding whether a patent is > valid or defensible, both because it doesn't really have the resources > or in-house expertise to do this, and because the only way to know for > sure is to go through a lengthy court process, perhaps in several > different countries. And yet, if there is a consensus among those who > are invested in the technology that a particular patent isn't going to > present an actual obstacle to deployment, it makes sense to let it go > forward. > > The alternative - letting a dubious patent block or significantly delay > approval of an IETF standard - gives dubious patents much more power > than they deserve. > > - A similar argument can be made for patents that are valid and > defensible, but for which the applicability to a given protocol is > dubious. > > - There have been cases in the past where apparently valid and > applicable patents, existed but would expire soon. Some of our > standards appear have a useful lifetime of many decades. From that > point of view, a patent that has been in force for a few years might be > a short-term concern. Whether this is the case depends on many factors, > including the remaining lifetime of the patent and the nature of the > protocol under discussion. An IETF-wide policy doesn't seem to make > sense here, especially if the effect of that policy were to delay work > on a protocol that probably wouldn't be ready for deployment until the > patent had expired, or nearly so, anyway. > > - There are cases for which a patent with an RAND license presents an > insignificant barrier to deployment, because a substantial monetary > investment would be required in any event to implement a protocol. For > instance, a protocol that inherently requires expensive hardware to > implement, but for which the license fee is a small portion of that > required to pay for the hardware. Again, this is something that needs > to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. > > - Just because it appears at first that a protocol might be impaired by > the existence of a patent, doesn't mean that a workaround won't be found > as the protocol is developed. This has happened many times. Also, > patent holders have been known to make licenses available under more > attractive terms precisely because the technology was being considered > for an IETF standard. That kind of pressure/encouragement might well be > more effective at making useful technology available to the Internet > community than a blanket patent policy. > > Speaking as someone who has been involved in IETF for about 17 years > now, by far the best way to ensure that IETF protocols to be safe for > open source implementors is for open source implementors to participate > in IETF working groups. IETF's policy of rough consensus means that > every interested party has a strong voice when it comes to objecting to > things that will hamper implementation or deployment. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf