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Re: IETF IP Contribution Policy



(Please forward to the non-IETF lists on copy.)

(I apologise to the ipr-wg list for being off topic,
but I believe one further factual clarification is
required.)

Larry, I am not a lawyer but I do understand enough
law to know that I cannot give you the Brooklyn Bridge,
because I don't own it. Thus:

On 2007-01-18 19:41, Lawrence Rosen wrote:

... (it also being understood that the licenses granted under this paragraph
(E) shall not be deemed to grant any right under any patent, patent
application or other similar intellectual property right disclosed by the
Contributor under [RFC3979]).

Your very selective quote from one document in a set of documents is, as far as my non-lawyer understanding goes, merely saying "The IETF cannot grant rights that it does not own."

That isn't in fact policy; it's a statement of the blindingly
obvious, in the context of the full set of documents.
As others have told you, it's not a "draft policy" in any case;
it's old news, first approved in RFC 3667 (January 2004),
but since it's a statement of the obvious, it wasn't news
even then. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but to me it's a direct
implication of the older formulation of the same IPR policy
approved in 1996. I don't think anyone implementing any IETF
standards has ever been in serious doubt about this point.

Regards

    Brian Carpenter
    IETF Chair


____________From ipr-wg-bounces at ietf.org Fri Jan 19 12:02:58 2007 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=stiedprmman1.va.neustar.com) by megatron.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H7x8Z-0005KU-1v; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:02:47 -0500 Received: from [10.91.34.44] (helo=ietf-mx.ietf.org) by megatron.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H7x8X-0005Jp-OT for ipr-wg at ietf.org; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:02:45 -0500 Received: from mtagate1.de.ibm.com ([195.212.29.150]) by ietf-mx.ietf.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H7x8U-0003NM-9m for ipr-wg at ietf.org; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:02:45 -0500 Received: from d12nrmr1607.megacenter.de.ibm.com (d12nrmr1607.megacenter.de.ibm.com [9.149.167.49]) by mtagate1.de.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l0JH2eLE034558 for <ipr-wg at ietf.org>; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:02:41 GMT Received: from d12av04.megacenter.de.ibm.com (d12av04.megacenter.de.ibm.com [9.149.165.229]) by d12nrmr1607.megacenter.de.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8/NCO v8.2) with ESMTP id l0JH2esh2277566 for <ipr-wg at ietf.org>; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:02:40 +0100 Received: from d12av04.megacenter.de.ibm.com (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by d12av04.megacenter.de.ibm.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.13.3) with ESMTP id l0JH2d2V010828 for <ipr-wg at ietf.org>; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:02:40 +0100 Received: from sihl.zurich.ibm.com (sihl.zurich.ibm.com [9.4.16.232]) by d12av04.megacenter.de.ibm.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id l0JH2dG7010821; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:02:39 +0100 Received: from [9.4.210.68] ([9.4.210.68]) by sihl.zurich.ibm.com (AIX4.3/8.9.3p2/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA69800; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:02:32 +0100 Message-ID: <45B0F7FD.3010609 at zurich.ibm.com> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:55:25 +0100 From: Brian E Carpenter <brc at zurich.ibm.com> Organization: IBM User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com References: <023b01c73b30$53d649d0$6501a8c0 at LROSENTOSHIBA> In-Reply-To: <023b01c73b30$53d649d0$6501a8c0 at LROSENTOSHIBA> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/) X-Scan-Signature: 52e1467c2184c31006318542db5614d5 Cc: 'Legal Discuss' <legal-discuss at apache.org>, license-discuss at opensource.org, ipr-wg at ietf.org Subject: Re: IETF IP Contribution Policy X-BeenThere: ipr-wg at ietf.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: IPR-WG <ipr-wg.ietf.org> List-Unsubscribe: <https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg>, <mailto:ipr-wg-request at ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Post: <mailto:ipr-wg at ietf.org> List-Help: <mailto:ipr-wg-request at ietf.org?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg>, <mailto:ipr-wg-request at ietf.org?subject=subscribe> Errors-To: ipr-wg-bounces at ietf.org

(Please forward to the non-IETF lists on copy.)

(I apologise to the ipr-wg list for being off topic,
but I believe one further factual clarification is
required.)

Larry, I am not a lawyer but I do understand enough
law to know that I cannot give you the Brooklyn Bridge,
because I don't own it. Thus:

On 2007-01-18 19:41, Lawrence Rosen wrote:

... (it also being understood that the licenses granted under this paragraph
(E) shall not be deemed to grant any right under any patent, patent
application or other similar intellectual property right disclosed by the
Contributor under [RFC3979]).

Your very selective quote from one document in a set of documents is, as far as my non-lawyer understanding goes, merely saying "The IETF cannot grant rights that it does not own."

That isn't in fact policy; it's a statement of the blindingly
obvious, in the context of the full set of documents.
As others have told you, it's not a "draft policy" in any case;
it's old news, first approved in RFC 3667 (January 2004),
but since it's a statement of the obvious, it wasn't news
even then. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but to me it's a direct
implication of the older formulation of the same IPR policy
approved in 1996. I don't think anyone implementing any IETF
standards has ever been in serious doubt about this point.

Regards

    Brian Carpenter
    IETF Chair


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