ObDeclaration: I am also a practitioner in this field. I see no problem with people making purely factual claims such as 'Document X may constitute prior art with respect to some of the claims'. Making conclusions is where the problem might lie, if that is someone was foolish enough to consider commentary in this forum to be a reliable form of advice or that either the IETF or the poster had any duty of care with respect to the advice given. Construing patent claims is not as straightforward as it might appear at first sight. On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 4:57 PM, David Morris <dwm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Thu, 15 Apr 2010, todd glassey wrote: > >> Dean - I think the problem is that the individuals in the IETF who >> represent their sponsors are generally not licensed patent agents or >> attorneys (although there are a couple of exceptions to this last one) >> and so its really hard for someone who has no experience in the patent >> process to make any reliable commentary. > > I think there are two aspects of commentary ... commenting on the legal > aspects is, as you have noted, of limited value. But commenting on the > technical basis of a patent claim is within the realm of expertise of this > group, just as most of us have no legal standing, only some of us will be > experts for any any given issue. We can comment on prior art and we can > comment on the question of whether a particular issue represents a > solution that experienced practitioners in a particular technology would > come up with as an obvious solution. > > Those observations may, when taken back to our interested parties, may > stimulate proper legal process actions to object to or support a > particular patent application. The open discussion in the IETF can > make a meaningful contribution, even if the opions on their own have > no legal standing. > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > -- -- New Website: http://hallambaker.com/ View Quantum of Stupid podcasts, Tuesday and Thursday each week, http://quantumofstupid.com/ _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf