Re: [TLS] Proto write-up for TLS exporter

[Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams at sun.com>]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 04:10:01PM +0200, Badra wrote:
> May it be possible for the draft's authors to review the related Certicom's
> patents and conclude whatever they are or aren't related to the document in
> question?

Absolutely not.  A document author should _never_ have to do that unless
they are the owners of (or work for the owners of) the relevant patents.
Nor, to be clear, should the authors be required to produce such a
review (e.g., done by their lawyers).

If the IETF were ever to require me to do such analysis, in order to
prorgress an I-D that I'm an author of, when I'm not the IPR owner or an
agent thereof, then I'd simply refuse to do so and let the I-D expire
without further ado if need be.  I'm quite certain that my or my
employer's lawyers would insist on that very course of action.
Moreover, I'd stop participating in the IETF altogether, and I'm sure
many others would too.

It's not fair even to ask the authors to do such a review if they feel
like it.  It would probably be a dangerous expectation to set, that
authors should "volunteer" to do such reviews.  Moreover, such reviews
would do everyone else exactly no good.  Just because my or my lawyer's
opinion is that some IPR does not cover a given document cannot mean
that the IPR owner won't think otherwise and sue you if they think you
infringe on their IPR.

Simon is being unreasonable by acting as though assertions NOT made are
nonetheless in force.  We're not mind readers and the law does not and,
indeed, _must_ not expect us to so be (no, I am not a lawyer).  We can
and should (nay, must) only make decisions based on IPR claims that are
asserted, not on claims that are not asserted (again, IANAL, but you
knew that).

Simon should seek legal advice on that point, and hopefully remove his
objection (or perhaps the TLS WG chairs and/or IESG can just declare
consensus nonetheless and let Simon appeal if he likes).

Cheers,

Nico
--