Intellectual Property Rights (ipr)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the . It may now be out-of-date.

Last Modified: 2004-09-07

Chair(s):

Steven Bellovin <smb@research.att.com>

General Area Director(s):

Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>

General Area Advisor:

Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: ipr-wg@ietf.org
To Subscribe: ipr-wg-request@ietf.org
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ipr-wg/index.html

Description of Working Group:

The IETF and the Internet have greatly benefited from the free exchange
of ideas and technology. For many years the IETF normal behavior was to
standardize only unencumbered technology.

While the "Tao" of the IETF is still strongly oriented toward
unencumbered technology, we can and do make use of technology that has
various encumbrances. One of the goals of RFC2026 "The Internet
Standards Process -- Revision 3" was to make it easier for the IETF to
make use of encumbered technology when it made sense to do so.

The IETF IPR policy, as embedded in RFC 2026 section 10, has proven
fairly successful. At the same time, a perceived lack of textual
clarity on some issues have made necessary the publication of
clarifications such as the "note well" statement issued in every
registration package, the I-D boilerplate rules, and a huge number of
discussions on specific IPR-related issues.

This working group is chartered with updating and clarifying section 10
of BCP 9, RFC 2026, which deals with intellectual property rights,
including, but not necessarily limited to, patent rights and
copyrights.

This working group will provide three documents:

o A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
  IPR policy on rights relevant to the document publication
  process, such as copyright issues and trademark issues.

o A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
  IPR policy on rights relevant to the use of IETF-standardized
  technology, such as patent-related claims

o An Informational document, which describes useful rules of thumb for
  working group chairs and working group members when working on IPR
  issues, as well as describing specific cases of IPR issues that have
  been successfully worked out in the IETF process, and providing
  references to specific examples of licensing statements and copyright
  provisions that have proved useful or worrisome. In other words, we
  plan to document the running code of our process.

The working group will attempt to work in three phases:

1. Document existing IPR practice in the IETF

2. Identify issues with current IPR practice that need to be addressed

3. Modify the documents produced in step 1 to reflect the outcome of
the
  discussion of items identified in step 2.

If there consensus of the working group for a different IPR policy than
the one described in RFC 2026, the working group will seek to amend its
charter to make it clear that it is changing the status quo.

The working group will have a design team to assist with document
drafting and review. As always, design team drafts have no special
status, and are subject to amendment, ratification, and/or replacement
by the working group.

Goals and Milestones:

Done  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents - documenting existing practice
Done  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology - documenting existing practice
Done  1st draft of IPR guidance document
Done  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents
Done  List of issues that need to be discussed while revising the documents
Done  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology
Done  2nd draft of IPR guidance document
Done  IPR BCP document on documents sent to IETF Last Call
Done  IPR BCP document on technology sent to IETF Last Call
Done  IPR guidance document submitted to IESG for publication
Oct 04  Conclude WG.

Internet-Drafts:

  • draft-ietf-ipr-subm-rights-fix-00.txt

    Request For Comments:

    RFCStatusTitle
    RFC3667 BCP IETF Rights in Contributions
    RFC3668 BCP Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology
    RFC3669 I Guidelines for Working Groups on Intellectual Property Issues
    RFC3905 I A Template for IETF Patent Disclosures and Licensing Declarations