On 6.22.2012 07:14 , "Peter Saint-Andre" <stpeter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Anything that you write, say, or discuss in the IETF, formally or informally, either at an IETF meeting or in another IETF venue such as a mailing list, is an IETF contribution. If you believe that any contribution of yours is covered by a patent or patent application made by you or your employer, you must disclose that fact or arrange for your employer to disclose it on your behalf. s/made by you or your employer/controlled by you or your employer/ And I would remove "on your behalf", as it a) adds to the word count, and b) could be viewed as a requirement to fill in the section III of the disclosure form--something that is neither common practice nor, IMO, overly useful. Stephan >On 6/21/12 9:50 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@xxxxxxxxxx> >> >> > With all due respect, that sentence could be improved. >> >> Agree with others; splitting it up into two simpler sentences is an >> improvement. >> >> A tweak, though (you lost something in the second sentence): >> >> Anything that you write, say, or discuss in the IETF, formally or >>informally, >> either at an IETF meeting, or in another IETF venue, such as a >>mailing >> list, is an IETF contribution. If any contribution of yours is >>covered by >> a patent or patent application made by you or your employer, you or >>they >> must disclose that. >> >> The original allowed the employer to make the disclosure (since, after >>all, >> the employee may not know of all patent filings), and also had a >>positive >> requirement to make such a disclosure; this revised one brings all that >>back. > >At the risk of starting a long thread about "we all contribute as >individuals", I'll note that traditionally the IPR rules have applied to >real people, not corporations. It's not the employee's responsibility to >know of all patent filings, and our IPR rules don't make that >assumption; we say only that if you have such knowledge and you make a >contribution that is based on such knowledge, you need to disclose the >IPR. If you don't want to disclose, you don't need to make a >contribution. I suppose it is fine to say "you or they need to disclose >it", but leaving it up to the faceless "they" might give individuals the >idea that this is all about corporations and not about each of us as >individual participants at the IETF. And somehow we also lost the point >about "you know" or "you believe" along the way. Thus I'd be more >happier with something like this: > > Anything that you write, say, or discuss in the IETF, formally or > informally, either at an IETF meeting or in another IETF venue > such as a mailing list, is an IETF contribution. If you believe that > any contribution of yours is covered by a patent or patent > application made by you or your employer, you must disclose > that fact or arrange for your employer to disclose it on your behalf. > >Peter > >-- >Peter Saint-Andre >https://stpeter.im/ > > > > >