Re: Jorge - Answer these question - or face litigation and the ethicscommittee of your licensing bar assoc's

[John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com>]

Todd,

I'm going to regret getting sucked into this discussion, but I
want to give you a nice, simple, layman's answer to what I think
it your collection of questions.  I am not a lawyer and this is
not legal advice to either you or the IETF, but I do have enough
understanding of the process to be able to make a fairly good
guess as to what is going on.

First of all, the patent system, since its origins, encourages
an inventor to disclose the invention --in sufficient detail
that it can be implemented and tested-- to encourage general
discussion, the advancement of science and technology, and so
on.  In return for doing that, the inventor gets a certain
amount of protection and rights to exclusivity in manufacturing
and marketing products that depend on the invention.   Parts of
several of your notes imply that, as a consequence of having
applied for, or even being granted, a patent, you have the right
to control discussion of the technology or to prevent additional
work that is inspired by it.  I believe that the technical term
to describe that position --whether it is really the one you
intended to take or not -- is "complete nonsense".

Inventors who want to avoid disclosure and public discussion of
their inventions are much better advised to simply keep them
secret, hoping that no one will independently figure out the
idea and either publish it, apply for a patent, or, for the
relevant jurisdictions, engage in a dispute about who was first
to invent.  Trying to keep secrets in the hope that independent
discoveries will not occur is, of course, a calculated risk.

Now, with regard to IETF WGs, if they actually invent things
--develop new intellectual property-- and then publish it, then
such publication is a candidate for being treated as prior art.
In first-to-invent jurisdictions, their claim to invention would
presumably date from the first time the idea was introduced into
the WG and discussed, if not earlier.  

If I come into a WG and suggest an idea that they refine and
publish in an IETF document, and I later decide that I want to
patent that idea, shame on me.  Maybe, given assorted subtle
rules about first invention and first publication, I have a
chance of getting the idea patented anyway, but I certainly
cannot blame the IETF if I cannot.    Similarly, if I file an
IPR disclosure with the IETF that does not actually identify a
patent, but provides a WG with enough information to make a
parallel invention on their own, I'd better be sure that any
patent I've applied for will be granted and that its claims
cover whatever the WG is going to come up with.  Otherwise, I
might luck out but, if I don't, my fault, not the IETF's.

Possibly even worse from my (hypothetical) standpoint, if I
wandered into an IETF WG, or commented on the charter of a
proposed one, and sketched out a vague idea and then went off
and created an invention based on that idea and tried to patent
it, only to find out that the WG had managed to come up with the
same result, I would think I would be extremely vunerable to
claims that my supposed invention was obvious.  Certainly two
parties (myself and the WG) coming up with the same
invention-type ideas at the same time doesn't prove obviousness
but it wouldn't help to make a case that my idea is absolutely
novel and unique either.

The IETF's IPR policies are designed to protect the process from
someone who patents an idea and then tries to get it turned into
a Standard that would require licensing in a way that catches
everyone by surprise --especially if a WG that knew about the
patent might have tried to devise a mechanism that didn't depend
on it.   They are also designed to balance the copyright
interests of authors and editors against the needs of the IETF
to be able to work on and develop documents and the needs of
implementers to use those documents as part of their
implementations.

It seems to me that you are looking for those policies to cover
your presumed right to say "I have a patent" or even "I may be
thinking about filing a patent" and thereby block IETF
discussion, adaptation, or creating derived works or
alternatives to whatever you are claiming.  There is just no way
for you to do that, no matter how much insistent or hostile
language you use.  If you are concerned about the IETF stealing
your ideas, I think your best course of action (and, again, this
isn't legal advice) is probably to avoid telling us about then
and to hope we don't figure out the same thing on our own.

And, if you believe that your interpretation is correct and I
correctly understand that you are claiming that your generating
an IPR claim should prevent the IETF from discussing the
technology you claim to own without obtaining a license from
you, then please stop the noise and sue -- it is ultimately the
only way that you have a chance of settling this in your favor.

Russ, Harald is on vacation and reading mail only episodically
(and perhaps not reading this thread at all).   Let me add my
voice to those of others who have suggested that it is time to
put a stop, at least a temporary one, to this thread and to
suggest that, as AD, you can clearly step in for an absent AD.

     john


--On Tuesday, 22 July, 2008 10:10 -0700 TS Glassey
<tglassey at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Endre - as a reasonable person - and in a reasonable tone,
> what happens when this WG says "We want to ignore Patent Law
> and claim it doesn't exist nor that we are constrained by
> those Laws that we are not happy with?"
> 
> My point in asking is that Patent Law is very simple. And the
> Patent people are pretty clear that US Patent Law requires
> proper time-clocks be kept when IP is published in any form.
> Likewise that patent filing in Japan is useless if there is
> any prior art in print per the patent offices definitions of
> what prior art means?
> 
> Why is it that the IETF is unwilling to acknowledge that its
> work effects patent filing's for IP protection in any number
> of countries around the World?





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