[idn] Intellectual Property rules (was: NSI Multilingual...)

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

There seems to be some confusion about IETF patent policy and, in
particular, about the comments I made during and after the WG
meeting.  The authoritative version of the policy is in RFC 2026,
supplemented by the notice passed out in Pittsburgh. I would
strongly encourage everyone in the WG --but especially anyone who
is affiliated with an organization which might have intellectual
property claims on a technology or approach being suggested to
IDN or to the IETF elsewhere-- to read both, in conjunction with
your attorney(s) if you have any doubt about its meaning or
possible interpretations. 

A crude summary of the policy, and more or less what I said in
Pittsburgh, is that, if one is going to participate in the IETF
discussions of a topic in any way, one _must_ disclose, by
letter to the IETF Secretariat, any intellectual property
rights (IPR) claims (especially patent claims and specifically
including patent applications) of which one has knowledge (or
of which reasonable people would expect you to have knowledge
in reasonable situations).  Failure to do is a violation of
the requirements of RFC 2026, in extremely bad taste and might
subject one to various legal problems, including inability to
enforce the patents.  If one can't, or won't, make such
disclosures of relevant IPR claims, one is obligated to not
participate.
 
Existence of IPR claims doesn't prevent the WG from
considering the technology.  In the case of many IETF WGs,
decisions that are finally made involve complex engineering
tradeoffs among the strengths and weaknesses of various
approaches; patent claims are just one of those strengths and
weaknesses.  In other words, the WG may consider the existence
of intellectual property claims (and/or licensing assertions)
in selecting a technology, but the existence of such claims
does not bar the technology from being considered.

Mentioning patent claims that are made, or likely to be made,
by those who are not participating is certainly worthwhile.
But an organization or person who is not involved is obviously
not required to register a statement with the secretariat, etc.

On a personal note, I would strongly discourage [further]
amateur lawyer activity on the list.  Interpretation of the
validity of a patent claim (or even what the words mean) is a
sensitive business requiring professional expertise and the
outcome may be different in different countries.  In general,
the IETF doesn't expect lawyers to design internet protocols
and they don't expect us to interpret patent claims.  Lawyers
who want to offer interpretations are permitted (possibly
encouraged) to do so, but with the assumption that they bear
the usual responsibilities for their professional opinions and
companies contemplating quoting their lawyers should consult
them about the liabilities they may be incurring if they do so.

Summary for the IDN situation:

	* There is no IETF procedural _requirement_ that UTF-8 be
	chosen unless it is technically the right choice.  It is
	preferred to options that are technically equivalent (if
	such exist), but that is all.
	
	* Any individual who is aware of intellectual property
	claims, especially patent claims, from his or her
	organization about IDN-related technology must either
	disclose those claims or get completely away from the
	working group before anything possibly-related to those
	claims is introduced into the discussion and before
	participating in discussions relative to the merits of
	other approaches.
	
	* Any individual who is aware of patent (or other IPR)
	claims from organizations not participating in the
	process may reasonably want to announce the existence of
	those claims and to encourage the company involved to
	participate in the IDN process (and disclose their claims
	in the process).  Of course, people who are doing
	IDN-related work should be encouraged to participate
	whether they have IPR claims or not.

And I would, personally, encourage IDN to figure out which
approaches best meet the needs identified by the WG and, only
when that is done, sort out whether some of those approaches
should be preferred over others because of the absence of
credible encumberances.

    john
    (speaking as Technical Advisor to the WG, if that is
	relevant)