Clarification of the Third Party Disclosure Procedure in RFC 3979

Status of This Memo

This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © The IETF Trust (2007).

Abstract

This document clarifies and updates a single sentence in RFC 3979. Specifically, when third party Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) disclosures are made, the intention is that the IETF Executive Director notify the IPR holder that a third party disclosure has been filed, and to ask the IPR holder whether they have any disclosure that needs to be made, per applicable RFC 3979 rules.

1. Introduction

This document clarifies and updates a single sentence in RFC 3979 [RFC3979]. Specifically, when third party IPR disclosures are made, the intention is that the IETF Executive Director notify the IPR holder that a third party disclosure has been filed, and to ask the IPR holder whether they have any disclosure that needs to be made, per applicable RFC 3979 rules.

This document updates RFC 3979.

2. The Fix

RFC 3979, Section 4 (C), states:

(C) Where Intellectual Property Rights have been disclosed for IETF

Documents as provided in Section 6 of this document, the IETF Executive Director shall request from the discloser of such IPR, a written assurance that upon approval by the IESG for publication as RFCs of the relevant IETF specification(s), all persons will be able to obtain the right to implement, use, distribute and exercise other rights with respect to Implementing Technology under one of the licensing options specified in Section 6.5 below unless such a statement has already been submitted.

In the case of third party disclosures, it makes no sense to ask the discloser about potential licensing terms, since they do not own the IPR. Instead, it only makes sense to ask the IPR holder.

This document updates RFC 3979 by changing the word "discloser" to "holder" in the above text.

3. Security Considerations

This document has no known security implications.

4. Normative Reference

   [RFC3979]  Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF
              Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005.

Author's Address

Thomas Narten
IBM Corporation
3039 Cornwallis Ave.
PO Box 12195 - BRQA/502
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2195

   Phone: 919-254-7798
   EMail: narten@us.ibm.com

Full Copyright Statement

Copyright © The IETF Trust (2007).

This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.

This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org.

Acknowledgement

Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society.