Abhishek, The overriding reason, as far as I'm concerned, is that many or most service providers have a policy of avoiding equipment purchases that lock them into a single vendor if at all possible. Second sources are necessary for a number of reasons, and not only for competition - what happens if the selected vendor goes out of business, has a supply chain failure, kills the product for whatever reason, or alternatively simply can't meet the demand for the product? That's why you see carriers sponsoring or conducting their own interoperability testing, and include interoperability requirements in their RFPs. And while interoperability can be obtained through private agreements between vendors, it's much easier for all concerned if there are standardized solutions that have been publicly vetted and agreed upon by the community at large (both vendors and service providers). Cheers, Andy On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Abhishek Verma <abhishekv.verma@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > I have a basic question relating to patents and IETF. > > Assume that i have a nifty idea on how i can speed up, lets say, a > database exchange in OSPF. My doubt is that why should i submit an > IETF draft describing this, which can later become an RFC, when i can > very well patent this idea? I understand that if i submit this to > IETF, then there will be an RFC and all vendors will come out with > inter-operable implementations. However, if i dont give it to IETF and > rather submit a patent, i can do very well for the vendor that i work > for. All customers using this vendor's boxes will now have access to > patented database exchange in OSPF, which will effectively mean more > business for this vendor. > > So, the question is, what is the motivation for somebody to write an > internet-draft when the person can file a patent? > > I spoke to several people offline and i couldnt get any good answers. > The typical response was that most ISPs prefer multiple vendors, and a > patented solution will cause issues as the other vendor will not have > that support. Is this the only reason? > > Thanks, > Abhishek > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf