The MPLS WG Archive

[Alex Zinin <zinin@psg.com>]

Folks-

 It seems that some clarification regarding IPR would be useful here.

 Below I will outline the way things work today. Clarifying questions are
 welcome. Suggestion about changing the way the IETF's IPR policy works should
 be taken to the IPR WG.

 WG-related aspects

  1. IETF WGs do NOT make decisions on validity of IPR potentially applicable
     to a given technology. WG participants form their own personal opinions
     on how valid and applicable the potential patents are. The WG then makes a
     rough-consensus-based decision of whether specific technology or a
     document should be adopted as WG items, etc.

  2. Presence of IPR should NOT be taken as an argument for automatic
     disapproval of a document or technology. The WG needs to make an _informed_
     decision balancing all aspects of the proposal. We DO have examples where
     WGs decided to continue even in the presence of IPR.
  
  3. To ensure that the WG decision is indeed informed, relevant IPR statements
     should be properly registered with the IETF secretariat at the time the
     decision is being made.

  4. As any other aspect of a proposal, the WG can and should consider IPR
     as early as possible, including at the point of adoption of a document
     as a WG item.

 IESG-related aspects:

  1. The IESG will NOT evaluate patent validity. By default, the IESG will NOT
     explicitly verify licensing terms either. The presumption is that existence
     of multiple independent interoperable implementations will implicitly mean
     that either the licensing terms were reasonable and non-discriminatory,
     or the implementers decided that licensing is not required.

     The above presumption may be challenged, for example, during the IETF LC.
     In this case, the IESG may decide to request that the implementation report
     explicitly includes licensing-related information in it. Note that a WG may
     well decide to do this without an explicit request from the IESG.

  2. As a general practice, the IESG will not approve a document before all IPR
     statements that it's been informed of have been properly submitted and show
     up on the IETF IPR web-page.

 Regarding the Internet drafts in question (draft-shen-nhop-fastreroute-00.txt
 draft-shen-mpls-ldp-nnhop-label-00.txt):

  1. I believe we should thank the authors for showing a responsible behavior
     and notifying the IETF about possible IPR, even though it was done in a not
     completely proper form.

  2. It is fair for the WG (and as an AD I would encourage this) to request that
     the IPR statements are properly submitted to the IETF secretariat before
     making the decision.

 Reading material for curious:

  RFC 2026 "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", specifically
  section 10 "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS"

  RFC 2028 "The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process",
  specifically section 3.2 "IETF Working Groups"

  RFC 3668 "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology"

  RFC 3669 "Guidelines for Working Groups on Intellectual Property Issues"
  
--
Alex Zinin
IETF RTG Area co-Director