The MPLS WG Archive

[Scott W Brim <swb@employees.org>]

On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 05:18:42PM -0400, Curtis Villamizar allegedly wrote:
> Two changes that would be a good idea are:
> 
> If any draft has unspecified intellectual property restrictions, such
> as "patent pending" with no description of what the patent would cover
> if granted (there is no access to applications), then the
> internet-draft should be held from any advancement until the
> restrictions can be fully specified or those portions of the draft
> which infringe are removed.

> If the party with intellectual property rights is unwilling to provide
> licencing at low cost non-discriminitory term, then the IESG should
> not advance an internet-draft until those portions of the draft that
> infringe are removed.

This would all be nice.  But the real problem is not encumbrance -- this
message is brought to you by a patented keyboard, over a patented
Ethernet, and so on -- it's how the IPR holder behaves.  

There are many patents for which licenses are given royalty-free.
Patents are often held not to make a profit but for defense.  Personally
I think defensive patents are just fine.  I like them, because they help
neutralize the efforts of the predatory patent acquirers.  "Encumbrance"
is not a problem in itself.  

If the IPR holder is clearly out to make money off the patent, then a WG
usually avoids using that technology.  However, if the IPR holder does
not specify the relevant claims, or does not specify licensing terms, a
working group has to use other measures to decide whether to continue
work on an idea.  In this case Redback has claims, but doesn't give
complete information, and the answer seems to be easy -- now that it's
been brought to their attention they will work on providing that
information.  Other cases have been (and are) a lot harder.


On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 06:43:13PM -0700, Naiming Shen allegedly wrote:
> I would think it's a professional courtesy for the authors of that
> draft to mention this issue within this community when it's first
> published. If this working-group has some special procedures to follow,
> we would like to hear them from the chairs or ADs, I would be happen
> to comply.

It's more than professional courtesy, it's required if the authors know
of relevant IPR.  See RFC3668.  Different WGs treat IPR differently, and
give it different weight, but 3668 is universal.

(See also 3669.)

Scott