A follow-up here: I'd be more comfortably with something more waffly, something more like this: Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, acting as a working group chair or Area Director can often be considered "Participating" in all activities of the relevant working group or area; as such, working group chairs and Area Directors are expected to make a best, good-faith effort to carry out the responsibilities of Participants. Or perhaps we want to separate WGCs from ADs here, and the text needs more work in any case, but I hope people see the general point. Barry On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Barry Leiba <barryleiba@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>The "reasonably and personally aware" applies to the IPR, not to the >>>participation. >> >> I think this is incorrect. >> >> According to section 5.1.2 (disclosure requirement based on >> Participation, not own IPR), a disclosure obligation exists if “the >> Participant believes Covers or may ultimately Cover that >> Contribution”. I don’t think anyone could argue that an AD has a >> “believe” in a patent or application he/she is aware of Covers a >> Contribution when he has never seen the Contribution. > > Would you accept "I didn't read the draft" as an acceptable reason > that someone engaged in active discussion on a draft didn't disclose? > > We don't have different levels of Contributor here. Someone making a > Contribution has an obligation to disclose, even if s/he was one of > those who said, "I didn't read the draft, but...." If we declare the > ADs to be Contributors, why does the same not apply to them? > >> A late disclosure is better than no disclosure > > I hope we all agree on that! > >> clearly, an AD >> has a much better justification of making such a late disclosure. I >> would hope that no one would complain if an AD makes a late disclosure >> and, when asked for the reason of lateness, he says “I was not >> responsible AD; I came across this during final review in IETF last >> call, and just identified this. “ In fact, people should appreciate >> this. > > Maybe so, but as it stands now in the document, it's still a late > disclosure, and there might still be backlash, legal concerns by > employers, and reluctance to put people in that position. > > If that's the consensus, then there we have it... but I think we > should be very careful about unintended consequences of this one. > > Barry