[Tinyos-alliance] TTX update

[Philip Levis]

Matt said:

"The IETF suggests, but does not dictate, that
companies should accompany contributions with no-fee licenses for any
relevant IP. Patent infringement issues are then the concern of those
implementing IETF standards, not the IETF itself (if I understand things
correctly). The IETF does not guarantee that infringement cannot occur,
especially since third parties might have IP rights in an IETF standard.
If this works in practice, it sounds reasonable to me."

That's right. What the IETF *does* dictate is that by putting your IP  
in a Draft or RFC, you grant the IETF a license to publish/reproduce  
it. There are a couple of ways you can limit the IETF (e.g., say "you  
can publish this but not derivative works"). 3978:

    The non-exclusive rights that the IETF needs are:

    a. the right to publish the document
    b. the right to let the document be freely reproduced in the formats
       that the IETF publishes it in
    c. the right to let third parties translate it into languages other
       than English
    d. except where explicitly excluded (see Section 5.2), the right to
       make derivative works within the IETF process.
    e. the right to let third parties extract some logical parts, for
       example MIB modules

    The authors retain all other rights, but cannot withdraw the above
    rights from the IETF/ISOC.

Another important clause:

3.6.  Trademarks

    Contributors, and each named co-Contributor, who claim trademark
    rights in terms used in their IETF Contributions are requested to
    state specifically what conditions apply to implementers of the
    technology relative to the use of such trademarks.  Such statements
    should be submitted in the same way as is done for other  
intellectual
    property claims.  (See [RFC3979] Section 6.)

What I said in the telecon a few weeks ago w.r.t. IPR disclosure was  
not correct (it was based off a quick reading of 3978 and not 3979).  
A couple of bullet points from 3979:

o The IETF does not require patent searches (1.l)
o The "working code" mentality means that for something to go to  
standard there generally are at least two implementations. and this  
is evidence that use of IPR is non-discriminatory (4.1)

It seems that the place the IETF runs into this most is with security  
protocols. E.g., mentioning RSA in a security RFC. One interesting  
point (8):

    An IETF consensus
    has developed that no mandatory-to-implement security technology can
    be specified in an IETF specification unless it has no known IPR
    claims against it or a royalty-free license is available to
    implementers of the specification unless there is a very good reason
    to do so.

Phil