I don't feel that strongly about being able to remove patent disclosures which no longer have any value; if the concensus is to keep them in an increasingly cluttered list of disclosures, so be it. The only situation I was looking to avoid was the whining that would ensue when a patent holder submitted a disclosure for a specific contribution into a specific working group, the technology doesn't make it into the standard, and then someone else later tries to take that same technology, knowing (or not) that a disclosure was on file for it for the original submission, puts it into an ID for another working group, and then finds out the hard way that the original licensing commitment doesn't apply. However, I guess knowing that there might be some proprietary technology in the original contribution (and thus the latter one) would still be useful information, even if the licensing commitment was no longer valid. I expect the result will be more specifics in each patent disclosure, and the subsequent submission of amendments by patent holders reiterating that a licensing commitment is no longer valid, with the failure of the specific contribution to make it into the IETF standard that was originally targeted. Regards, Chuck ------------- Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Joel M. Halpern > Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:20 AM > To: Simon Josefsson > Cc: IETF Discussion > Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? > > I have to agree with a number of other folks. Patent > statements can not be removed. It is probably reasonable to > have a section for "apparently not currently relevant" > disclosures. But the disclosures, and the terms therein, are > still active. This is important for many reasons, including > confirming what was historically relied on, having available > information if a working group returns to an item, and other issues. > > Adding annotations, and organizing information for simplicity > and clarity are fine. Removing information is not fine. > > Yours, > Joel M. Halpern > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf