Internet Engineering Task Force P. Savola Internet Draft CSC/FUNET Expiration Date: October 2003 April 2003 Mentioning IPR Considerations in Last Calls draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. To view the list Internet-Draft Shadow Directories, see http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Abstract This memo describes an additional policy with last calls regarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) claims. The existence and the pointer to the IPR claims or an indication of non-existence of knowledge of such claims must be mentioned in all IETF last calls and should be mentioned in working group last calls. Additionally, all documents for which a last call prior to the publication was not required and IPR claims are known, must now be either last-called or rejected. This memo updates RFC 2026 and RFC 2418. Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 1] Internet Draft draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt April 2003 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................... 2 2. Working Group Last Calls ................................... 3 2.1. Examples ............................................... 3 3. IETF Last Calls ............................................ 4 3.1. When to Have an IETF Last Call ......................... 4 3.2. The Contents of the IETF Last Call ..................... 4 4. Process Considerations ..................................... 5 5. Acknowledgements ........................................... 5 6. Security Considerations .................................... 5 7. References ................................................. 5 7.1. Normative .............................................. 5 7.2. Informative ............................................ 5 Author's Address ............................................... 6 1. Introduction This memo describes an additional policy with last calls regarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) claims. The existence and the pointer to the IPR claims or an indication of non-existence of knowledge of such claims must be mentioned in all IETF last calls and should be mentioned in working group last calls. Additionally, all documents for which a last call prior to the publication was not required and IPR claims are known, must now be either last-called or rejected. The second section discusses policies regarding working group last calls. The third section in turn describes when and how to IPR issues affect IETF last calls; some procedures are common with working group last calls, but the mention of IPR claims is required rather than strongly encouraged. The fourth section lists a few brief notes on the impact on the process. This memo updates RFC 2026 [IETF] and RFC 2418 [WG]. Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 2] Internet Draft draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt April 2003 2. Working Group Last Calls Working group (WG) last calls are optional [WG], but in practice are issued for all Internet-Drafts prior to the submission to the IESG. If there is a working group last call, the chair(s) issuing the last call should also make a mention whether IPR concerns have been raised regarding the document. Such a short mention should include at least: o the existence of IPR claim(s), and o the pointer to all the relevant claim(s) in the IETF IPR repository. On the other hand, if there no known IPR issues, the fact should be clearly mentioned in the last call announcement. If IPR claims are known but have not been recorded in the IETF IPR repository yet, documents must not be last-called prior to the claims appearing in the repository. The reason why describing IPR issues in WG last calls is not mandatory is due to the assumption that most WG participants can be expected to be aware of the IPR claims of the technologies being worked on in the working group. However, everyone may not be fully aware of all the IPR in a WG, and IPR claims may have been made only recently after a participant has last looked at the IPR repository. Thus, it is strongly encouraged to include an IPR notice in all working group last calls. 2.1. Examples In case there are IPR claims, the portion of the text in the last call could be like: Relevant IPR has been claimed. See http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/SRI-NGTRANS.txt for details. Or if no claims are known, the text in the last call could be like: No IPR claims are known. Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 3] Internet Draft draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt April 2003 3. IETF Last Calls IETF Last Calls are mandatory for all standards track documents [IETF], whether for entering into, advancing within or removing from the standards track. 3.1. When to Have an IETF Last Call It has not been necessary to last-call Experimental and Informational RFC's which are products of a WG. If such a document has IPR claims, an IETF last call must be executed in the similar fashion as with standards track documents [IETF]. It has not been necessary to last-call non-WG Experimental or Informational RFC submissions going directly to the RFC Editor. When such a document is passed to the IESG for review, and the document has IPR claims, an IETF last call must be executed in similar fashion as with standards track documents, or the IESG must propose that the RFC Editor not publish the document. If the RFC Editor publishes such a document anyway, the IESG must insert an appropriate IESG Note in the document, as described in [IETF], indicating the presence of IPR claims. Note that due to possibly different policies, the existence of IPR issues in e.g. IRTF RFC submissions may not be known at all if no IPR disclosures are made for such Internet-Drafts. 3.2. The Contents of the IETF Last Call Any IETF Last Call must include an indication whether IPR has been claimed, and if so, the pointer to the disclosure in the IPR repository, as specified with working group last call. As with working group last calls, documents which have known IPR claims but the claims have not been filed in the IPR repository, a last call must not be done prior to the filing. The examples, as described above, also apply. It is recommended that some additional information is also provided in the last call, as the readers of the IETF last call cannot be expected to know the details why the particular solution was chosen despite the IPR claims. If a document is being removed from the standards track and is being replaced with something else, possible IPR claims with the latter should also be described in the similar fashion in the last call. Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 4] Internet Draft draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt April 2003 The responsibility for filling the IPR parts of an IETF last call is with the shepherding Area Director [PROCED], but it is expected that in practice it's done by the working group chairs (if applicable) or document authors/editors. 4. Process Considerations The memo adds only little weight to the process while making the IPR claims much more apparent in all the stages of the RFC approval process; this should make it easier for people which may be hampered by particular types of IPR claims or licensing to comment and debate the solutions prior to the approval. It is possible that some forms of licensing could be excepted from the "IPR claims" category -- but as the terms very from company to company and license to license and there has not been any harmonization, there cannot be exceptions at the moment. 5. Acknowledgements The first proposal was presented in Apr 2003 on the IPR working group mailing list; Spencer Dawkins and Brian Carpenter provided support and comments. 6. Security Considerations The memo makes the IETF RFC approval process of documents with IPR claims more transparent; this has no security considerations. 7. References 7.1. Normative [IETF] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC2026, BCP9, Oct 1996. [WG] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", RFC2418, BCP25, Sep 1998. 7.2. Informative [PROCED] Alvestrand, H., "IESG Procedures", draft-iesg-procedures-00.txt, work-in-progress, Jan 2002. Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 5] Internet Draft draft-savola-ipr-lastcall-00.txt April 2003 Author's Address Pekka Savola CSC/FUNET Espoo, Finland EMail: psavola@funet.fi Savola [Expires October 2003] [Page 6]