Stephan Wenger <stewe@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > Hi Simon, all, > > Before some "silence means approval" assumption kicks in here, allow me to > voice my concerns again. I continue to believe that changing the current > practice (which allows the removal of disclosures form the IETF database) is > NOT a good thing. Don't get me wrong: I don't believe that the act of > removing a disclosure form a database actually removes any obligations > resulting from promises made---nor does, in my opinion, the update of a > disclosure. I'm not going to repeat my arguments again; I think they are > known. The problem remains. If patent disclosures are removed, future participants have less information to make informed decisions on. That appears to be in conflict with the intentions behind the IETF patent policies, to make it possible for everyone to make their own informed decisions. > a. The submitter should have some control over which disclosures should be > shown in an obvious place, and which require some "digging". A simple way > to implement that would be a "visible" flag in the database; when viewing > the database in "basic" mode, only those "visible" flagged disclosures would > be displayed; in expert mode, however, all disclosures would be accessible. I would prefer a model where the "removal" flag is done as another disclosure. This allows the company to explain their reasons for asking for a removal. Right now, as far as I understand, companies may explain the reasons for removing a patent disclosure to the IETF Chair (or whomever is responsible for the IETF patent disclosure web page) in order to authorize the removal request, but this information is not seen by anyone else. This appears like a violation of the "we will not evaluate patent related claims" dogma, and there may be liabilities here. > b. At present, the database is organized into three sectors, "general IPR > statements", "specific IPR statements", and "third party IPR statements". > Along the lines of the discussion on ietf@ietf, to avoid future confusion, I > suggest replacing the word "IPR" with "Patents" (or "Patents, Patent > applications, and similar rights" to make the lawyers happy), and add a > fourth category "non-patent IPR". Things like the Jabber trademark > statement https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/324/ would go to the new > category. I support this. It may require changes to IETF documents around patent policies to make the terminology consistent though, which could be challenging. The sections could be: Copyright related disclosures Patent related disclosures Trademark related disclosures If there are other disclosures that are relevant, let's add sections for them instead of using a "IPR" kitchen sink. > c. It has to be understood and documented that the past practice does not > constitute any wrongdoing; neither by the IETF officers and staff, nor by > the rightholders who requested removal of disclosures. I don't see a reason to do that. There may be liability issues around making declarations like that, so the IETF should better avoid it. > d. Whatever the outcome of this discussion is, it needs to be documented > beyond mailing list postings. Agreed. /Simon _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf