For your information:
In draft-ietf-dnsext-rollover-requirements, an IETF wg effectively made
an a-priori decision to avoid the consideration of an IPR encumbered
alternative; the problem area being DNSSEC trust anchor key management.
I spare you the details of how the wg came to this decision, and how it
relates to the a-priori rejected alternative.
Now that the IESG accepted the above draft for publication as an RFC, it
becomes a procedural precedent for attempts to expeditiously restrict
IETF activities to IPR unencumbered alternatives.
Conversely, it reinforces the economic incentive for medium and large
organizations to isolate the individuals participating in the IETF
activities from the patent application management process.
Also, the above draft publication decision, in a context where the
problem area is still lacking a solution with a reasonable explicit
security model, is an empirical observation of the IETF strong
preference for "ignoring the technology" (instead of "ignoring the IPR")
when a tradeoff has to be made. Inescapably then, the aggregate scope
and field of application of IETF protocols is deemed to shrink as
innovation enhances the networking technology.
Please note that I am not well aware of the detailed procedural and
institutional arrangements that implement RFC3979, before the appeal
process can correct deviations. While I was participating in the above
matter, I chose not to rely on the appeal process, perhaps because it
wasn't clear to me how things should have gone in the first place.
P.S. Since even RFC3979 itself is absent from the IETF ipr wg charter;
perhaps the above is totally off-topic.
Regards,