Re: [TLS] Document Action: 'TLS Elliptic Curve Cipher Suites with

[Simon Josefsson <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:15:17 +0200
> Simon Josefsson <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@xxxxxxxx> writes:
>> 
>> > At 4:37 PM -0400 7/1/08, Richard M Stallman wrote:
>> >>All that is true, but doesn't the IETF have ways to press the big
>> >>companies to say whether they have any patents over a proposed
>> >>standard?
>> >
>> > No.
>> 
>> That is a rather terse answer.
>> 
>> The IETF has RFC 3979, in particular section 6.1, which says that IETF
>> participants must file a disclosure when he knows about his own
>> patents in IETF contributions, and is encouraged to file a disclosure
>> for patents owned by others.  That count as a "yes" answer to this
>> question for me.
>> 
>> To clarify, the IETF has RFC 3979 as the instrument to pressure big
>> companies to file these notifications, through the individuals who
>> participate in the IETF.
>> 
>> Could you elaborate on why you believe "no" is the correct answer?
>> 
> Simon, 3979 only constrains players who choose to participate in the
> IETF.  If they do not participate -- worse yet, if they choose not to
> participate with the intention of using submarine patents -- there's
> nothing the IETF can do.

That's a valid point.  Still, I would claim that most big companies
actively working in this area do participate in the IETF.  It is
certainly true for the case with ECC and Certicom.

> In fact, I'm not convinced that even conceptually there's anything the
> IETF could do against non-participants, since no license is needed to
> implement an IETF protocol.  How could there be, even in theory, if
> the RFCs are to remain open and freely redistributable?  I don't think
> an implementation would count as a derivative work under copyright
> law.

I don't see how this discussion is about copyright, it is a patent
disclosure question.

I believe the IETF has appropriate rules around this today through BCP
79.  The rules in there have been an effective instrument to get both
big and small companies to file patent disclosures several times, in my
experience.  If Paul Hoffman argues that the instrument is not effective
enough, that is more subjective, but my point is that the rules in BCP
79 can and have been used to press big companies to file patent
disclosures.

/Simon
_______________________________________________
TLS mailing list
TLS@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls