Granting rights that you do not have

[Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org>]

Brian E Carpenter <brc at zurich.ibm.com> writes:

> On 2007-01-17 04:25, Contreras, Jorge wrote:
>>>> The licenses under 3.3.a (other than 3.3.a.E, see below)
>>>> do NOT grant any rights to implement IETF standards
>>>> in products.  IETF Contributors are NOT required to grant patent
>>>> licenses to implementers.  This has always been IETF's policy, and
>>>> there is no ambiguity here.
>>> And that is why this is, and always has been, a policy issue. 
>>
>> Larry is right.  This is a "policy" question for the group.  I can
>> tell you what the current rules say, and can help write
>> new rules if there is consensus to change them (and if the chairs ask
>> me to).
>>
>> So far, Larry and Simon have voiced a desire to
>> change IETF policy so as to grant implementers a patent license to
>> use code that's embedded in RFCs (oversimplifying,
>> of course).
>
> Granting rights that you don't have remains tricky,
> as far as I understand these things  :-)

The IETF can require that _the authors_ grant these rights.  The IETF
do that today, for other rights, in BCP 78.

While BCP 78 is flawed in many respects, this is not one of them.  It
would be possible for the IETF to require that rights are granted to
third parties that the IETF does not own itself.  I believe that would
be a good thing, as I don't want to see the IETF "own" (in the legal
sense) contributions.  My perception is that the IETF has wisely kept
out of that business.

I want to clarify that I have NOT been talking about patents at all so
far, as our chairs have declared that shouldn't be discussed here.

/Simon

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
Ipr-wg at ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg