Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > On 2009-12-01 23:57, Simon Josefsson wrote: >> Scott Brim <scott.brim@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> >>> Simon Josefsson allegedly wrote on 11/30/2009 10:11 AM: >>>> There is no requirement in the IETF process for organizations to >>>> disclose patents as far as I can see. The current approach of only >>>> having people participate, and disclose patents, in the IETF is easy to >>>> work around by having two persons in an organization doing different >>>> things: one works on specifying and standardizing technology, and the >>>> other is working on patenting the technology. >>> Simon, from rfc3979: >>> >>> l. "Reasonably and personally known": means something an individual >>> knows personally or, because of the job the individual holds, >>> would reasonably be expected to know. This wording is used to >>> indicate that an organization cannot purposely keep an individual >>> in the dark about patents or patent applications just to avoid the >>> disclosure requirement. But this requirement should not be >>> interpreted as requiring the IETF Contributor or participant (or >>> his or her represented organization, if any) to perform a patent >>> search to find applicable IPR. >> >> I don't see how this modifies anything? The legal obligation is on the >> IETF participant, not on the organization. The organization is not >> bound by this text. > > IANAL. But if the participant is acting as an agent of the employer, > it seems to me that the employer is bound. In any case, you'd have to be > a brave or reckless employee not to assume that to be the case. You'd also > have to be a very obtuse employer to fund your employees to participate > if you didn't like the IETF's rules. Now you are moving the responsibility on to the organizations. I can't see how that modify my assertion that the IETF does not have any legal means to pressure organization to file patent disclosures. Either the IETF has a legal ability to apply pressure on organizations, or it does not. I don't see why that is a controversial statement. Nothing in the IETF history suggests it even wants to have a legal link to organizations who sends participants to the IETF. The text in RFC 3979 and other documents suggests strongly that this approach is intentional. /Simon _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf