Lawrence Rosen wrote: > 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. > _and_ its validity, _and_ its applicability, both of which can be subjective and difficult to determine conclusively without long delays and excessive expense. so we have to make judgments. and by "we" I mean individuals participating in IETF, not IETF itself. > The more feasible and deployable the protocol, the more important will be > FOSS implementations. > only relative to other protocols in the same space. granted that patents are the bane of any open standards-making organization, because patents do exactly the opposite of what open standards do. at the same time, we can't let FUD about patents become a denial of service attack to IETF efforts. Keith _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf