Subject: Re: Proposal to create IETF IPR Advisory Board

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:42:17 -0500 (EST)

> From: John Levine <[email-masked]>

    > We're looking forward to the draft 

I hope you're only partially ironic here. If there's no chance whatsoever of
such a draft going anywhere, I'd hate to see people, in good faith, put in
effort in creating one if it's 100.000% drop-dead guaranteed to be a waste of
time.

	Noel

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:53:58 +0000

> effort in creating one if it's 100.000% drop-dead guaranteed to be a waste of

There are some people whose time *is* worth wasting:-)

S.

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:12:40 -0500

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:42:17 -0500 (EST)
[email-masked] (Noel Chiappa) wrote:

> I hope you're only partially ironic here. If there's no chance
> whatsoever of such a draft going anywhere, I'd hate to see people, in
> good faith, put in effort in creating one if it's 100.000% drop-dead
> guaranteed to be a waste of time.
> 
I think the right advisory board would be a good idea, but I'm not
optimistic that we'd get one.

There's a line from Zelazny's "Lord of Light" that this reminds me of.
Approximately (I don't have the book handy) "he asked the storm.  The
storm never lies... and it always says No!".  A board composed solely
of, say, FSF afficiaonados would be useless, because the FSF's position
on patents isn't nuanced; I'd therefore have trouble believing that
their analyses were objective.  ("Not objective" isn't a value judgment
or an assertion about the correctness of any particular analysis.)

A more important question is what the board should do.  Analyze a
patent and its claims, and make statements about validity?  Leaving out
the question of the value of such an activity, when a definitive answer
can only come from a court, doing such an analysis is difficult and
time-consuming.  But I'm not even certain of the value of the answer --
certainly, the large corporations are not going to take this advisory
board's word for it; they'll do their own analysis, where the output of
the board would simply be more input.  And their motives may be
different.  Consider the case of three large companies, A, B, and C.  A
asserts that their patent covers some protocol.  B, which has a
cross-licensing agreement with A, wants it to be valid, because that
will keep C (which has no such agreement) and assorted start-ups out of
the market.

Infringement or non-infringement is a somewhat easier call, though the
answer there may depend on implementation choices.

Then, of course, there's the whole question of liability.  Can the IETF
and/or ISOC afford the liability insurance for such a board?

Finally, where are we going to get the people?  It's hard enough to get
sufficient security expertise, and there we don't even have to cross a
disciplinary boundary and bring in lawyers.  Could we get enough
competent people who know enough about enough different protocols *and*
about patent law, and are willing to spend (presumably uncompensated)
time doing this?  I have my doubts.

All that said, the above is my strawman that I've just torched.  This
is why we need a draft -- until we have one, we won't know if it's a
plausible, useful idea or not.  In fact, a metadraft -- one that simply
set out the questions that a concrete proposal should address -- would
be a worthwhile contribution in its own regard.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:40:46 -0800

> be a worthwhile contribution in its own regard.

In honor of open source, I'm glad to submit someone else's work as my first
draft: http://www.w3.org/2004/pp/psig/.

This is an effective working model. I'm sure it would have to be revised to
fit IETF's more democratic operations. 

For a detailed description, see
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/. In particular see
section 7. [This is a document I helped a little bit to write, several years
ago.]

Kudos to our friends in W3C for doing this well.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:24:20 -0800

Ted Ts'o wrote:
> So you've done the equivalent of submit Windows source code and assume
> that it can be ported to a Unix system "left as an exercise to the
> reader"....  care to give a detailed suggestion about *how* it could
> be revised to work with the IETF's more open procedures, and still be
> useful in terms of meeting your stated goals? 

I've made no such assumptions. I've submitted a couple of process documents
from W3C that can be modified easily to fit the IETF model. I thought John
and Steven would be satisfied with a rough draft. Sort of like Windows might
provide a model for a Linux open source program, without the actual code
being yet written. :-)

Now that I've submitted this draft, I refuse to be told it isn't a draft,
although I admit it isn't in the proper format. Any process bigots want to
comment on that flaw tonight too?

I specifically said that the W3C Patent and Standards Working Group (PSIG)
charter (http://www.w3.org/2004/pp/psig/) and *section 7* of the W3C Patent
Policy (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/) would be
models for an IETF IPR Advisory Board. Neither of those specific document
sections implies anything mandatory about RAND or royalty-free or any other
of the political patent battles that divide us. They are merely open process
descriptions, just like a draft here ought to be. 

/Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Theodore Tso [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 6:25 PM
> To: Lawrence Rosen
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Proposal to create IETF IPR Advisory Board
> 
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 05:40:46PM -0800, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> > Steven Bellovin wrote:
> This model works if you have closed working groups and no one is
> allowed to participate without first going through a huge amount of
> bureaucratic rigamarole, and where someone can't even poke their head
> into a meeting room without being explicitly invited by the chair.  It
> doesn't work at all in an IETF model which is much more open.
> 
> So you've done the equivalent of submit Windows source code and assume
> that it can be ported to a Unix system "left as an exercise to the
> reader"....  care to give a detailed suggestion about *how* it could
> be revised to work with the IETF's more open procedures, and still be
> useful in terms of meeting your stated goals?
> 
>        	  	   	   - Ted

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:44:37 -0500

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:24:20 -0800
"Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Ted Ts'o wrote:
> > So you've done the equivalent of submit Windows source code and
> > assume that it can be ported to a Unix system "left as an exercise
> > to the reader"....  care to give a detailed suggestion about *how*
> > it could be revised to work with the IETF's more open procedures,
> > and still be useful in terms of meeting your stated goals? 
> 
> I've made no such assumptions. I've submitted a couple of process
> documents from W3C that can be modified easily to fit the IETF model.
> I thought John and Steven would be satisfied with a rough draft. Sort
> of like Windows might provide a model for a Linux open source
> program, without the actual code being yet written. :-)
> 
> Now that I've submitted this draft, I refuse to be told it isn't a
> draft, although I admit it isn't in the proper format. Any process
> bigots want to comment on that flaw tonight too?
> 
> I specifically said that the W3C Patent and Standards Working Group
> (PSIG) charter (http://www.w3.org/2004/pp/psig/) and *section 7* of
> the W3C Patent Policy
> (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/) would be
> models for an IETF IPR Advisory Board. Neither of those specific
> document sections implies anything mandatory about RAND or
> royalty-free or any other of the political patent battles that divide
> us. They are merely open process descriptions, just like a draft here
> ought to be. 
> 

I think it's a fair start, though I note that 7.5.3 carries with it a
fairly strong bias towards royalty-free terms.  But let me translate.

Rather than a standing board (which was what I thought you had
intended), you're suggesting (translated IETF terms) that when a WG
encounters a patent thought to be related, a group will be formed
consisting of the AD, the WG chair(s) ex officio, representatives of
the WG (presumably designated by the chair(s)), perhaps an IAB liason
-- and the IETF patent counsel.  What is the analog to "representatives
of each member organization"?  Volunteers not from the WG?  Selected by
whom?  The usual IETF practice would be appointment by the AD and/or
the IAB, I suspect.

What would the possible alternatives be?  The W3C version has a strong
bias towards royalty-free, since that's W3C's overarching policy.  The
IETF's policy is different, and the board's charge would have to be
different.  Really, with the exception that it needs legal input, such
a group would actually be a design team that is supposed to look at the
tradeoffs (per our policies) and make a recommendation to the WG.

Anyway -- I think this is a promising suggestion, and not inconsistent
with IETF practice or policy.  But a fully-fleshed out I-D -- one that
addresses the membership and the alternatives -- is probably needed, if
only as a matter of form.

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:58:45 -0800

At 11:44 AM -0800 2/18/09, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> Really, with the exception that it needs legal input, such

Under that theory, I note that the IESG Design Team document would
appear to apply (http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/Design-Teams.txt).

For those  hard of linking, here's text that is particularly important from
my perspective:

The key point here is that the output of a design team is input to a
working group, not a final document.  Such a document must not be
considered as more important than any other input to the working group.

Anyone can write an alternative proposal and ask the working group to
consider it. The decision on which document to work further on must be made
by the consensus of the working group. If design teams work as intended,
their output will be of a quality that speaks for itself.

Working group chairs should note that there is a potential of anti-trust
liability if a design team is formed with a restricted membership and then
the output is given priority over other input to the process.

Unless the IETF is going to provide counsel to all other efforts,
there is a very real risk that the output of such a design team
will be given weight greater than that of other groups or individuals.
That wouldn't work, as noted above, as it means the restricted
membership might end up with a near-automatic right to make the decision.

I continue to believe that having the *whole* affected working group
make these decisions is the most effective and transparent way to
get the work done.  That way it gets the benefit of all the perspectives
(be it that of the FSF, some WG participants' patent counsels, or the
real-life risk assessment of the developers involved).   It is already
possible to request the AD to get input from the IETF's patent counsel,
which is delivered to the IETF as a whole.  That costs money, of course,
and we don't do it for every document as a matter of course.  But
delivering that advice through this body doesn't seem to add much
to me.

Only my opinion, of course,
				Ted Hardie

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:13:09 -0800

At 2:44 PM -0500 2/18/09, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
>-- and the IETF patent counsel.

I think you are putting words in Larry's mouth. In has past few messages, he has indeed talked about what sounded like a standing board, one that sounded like it would deal with issues from all WGs.

Larry, since you refuse to write a draft (and like to insult people who say that one is needed), can you at least say whether Steve or I are closer to your proposal?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:17:39 -0800

Steven, thanks very much for your email. My comments are below. /Larry

> From: Steven M. Bellovin [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:45 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]

[LR:] I share that bias, but that's an IETF battle for another day. For now,
I'm glad that you think of this as "a fair start".

> intended), 

[LR:] I had indeed intended a standing board, and still do. Why have to
agitate and recruit an expert team over every question, when a simple
question referred to an IPR Advisory Board for an answer will probably
suffice? But like most of your points in this paragraph, it's open for
discussion....

> you're suggesting (translated IETF terms) that when a WG

[LR:] Or already exists....

> the WG (presumably designated by the chair(s)), perhaps an IAB liason

[LR:] No comment. Up to you.

> -- and the IETF patent counsel.  

[LR:] Be very careful. No attorney who can be deemed to speak on behalf of
IETF regarding patents should be there opining IETF's opinion about actual
patents. Instead, I recommend that we have an invited (and probably open)
selection of other attorneys who are willing to sign up and actually
participate as individuals, not representing specific clients and speaking
with appropriate liability caveats. For process purposes, however, the IPR
Advisory Board can probably be chaired by an IETF patent counsel just to
make sure everyone behaves.... We'll have to see how many brave attorneys
are actually willing to participate in the entire IETF community's behalf,
but if W3C is an example, we'll find lots of willing attorneys. :-)

> What is the analog to "representatives

[LR:] ...And even some non-attorneys; I'm not prejudiced.... In light of
IETF's openness, anyone who is willing to sign up and actually participate,
although I think most engineers will find the mailing list itself boring.
Mostly it would consist of people reading the technology proposals, reading
the patent disclosures, and opining about whether they match up. No
guarantees or warranties. Just experts cooperating to advise non-experts so
we can get IETF work done. Let's keep those discussions off the WG lists
(where they distract everyone unnecessarily) and onto a single IPR Advisory
Board (with people who actually like reading patent stuff and probably
aren't just talking through their _____).

> tradeoffs (per our policies) and make a recommendation to the WG.

[LR:] Yep. In true open source fashion, I'm eagerly anticipating derivative
works of this suggestion, which was itself an unauthorized link to W3C. 

> only as a matter of form.

[LR:] Ahhhhh yes, form. :-) Does anyone else volunteer? Do we have a second?

/Larry

---

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:27:07 -0800

> Steven, thanks very much for your email. My comments are below. /Larry

Larry - it is inappropriate for the IETF to be creating hurdles for 
those that are unwilling to support the mandatory new licensing 
requirements considering those are not part of the original or updated 
charters to the IETF itself. Nor is it possible to force those who 
already made their standards through RFC2026 as to these newly created 
terms and conditions for the same service.

Todd Glassey
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>
>

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:36:51 -0500

On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:17:39 -0800
"Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> [LR:] I had indeed intended a standing board, and still do. Why have
> to agitate and recruit an expert team over every question, when a
> simple question referred to an IPR Advisory Board for an answer will
> probably suffice? But like most of your points in this paragraph,
> it's open for discussion....
> 
The advantage of a per-WG board is that members would likely have
familiarity with the technology and history of the field.  The
advantage of a standing board is familiarity with patents and
procedures.  Pick it...
 
> [LR:] Be very careful. No attorney who can be deemed to speak on
> behalf of IETF regarding patents should be there opining IETF's
> opinion about actual patents. Instead, I recommend that we have an
> invited (and probably open) selection of other attorneys who are
> willing to sign up and actually participate as individuals, not
> representing specific clients and speaking with appropriate liability
> caveats. For process purposes, however, the IPR Advisory Board can
> probably be chaired by an IETF patent counsel just to make sure
> everyone behaves.... We'll have to see how many brave attorneys are
> actually willing to participate in the entire IETF community's
> behalf, but if W3C is an example, we'll find lots of willing
> attorneys. :-)

I wonder -- the IETF has been known to be hostile to lawyers... 

> > Anyway -- I think this is a promising suggestion, and not
> > inconsistent with IETF practice or policy.  But a fully-fleshed out
> > I-D -- one that addresses the membership and the alternatives -- is
> > probably needed, if only as a matter of form.
> 

I'll participate, but I sure don't have the cycles to write anything,
nor am I likely to be at very many IETF meetings for the PAG WG or even
the PAG bar bof...

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:04:16 -0800

I am somewhat concerned about the legal liabilities of such a board.

There are many types of patent encumberance, as with many other issues in a consensus organization, the stupider the claim, the more difficulty it causes.

Lets look at some examples:

Case 1: DH/RSA

Patent here was completely solid, the idea was genuinely novel, nobody was ever in real doubt as to the ability of RSA to win an infringement claim. And the patent did something that was simply not possible any other way.

So the result here was pretty clear-cut, no need for discussion. If you wanted to do RSA you had to got get a license. So the choice was deal or wait till the patent to expire in 2000.

Case 2: Certificate Distribution Points

Patent here was possibly enforceable, arguments over keeping CDPs in or out delayed the spec.

The result here was decided when a work-around was discovered that rendered the patent claims unnecessary. Once it was clear that the outcome would be royalty free regardless the patent lost all value and royalty-free terms were offered.

Case 8: The fruitcake Patent

Patent here is almost certainly total crud. It is difficult to see how anyone could imagine it had any relationship to the specification whatsoever. 

The result here, litigation costing the defendants $5 million each. Patent thrown out.

Case 9: The fruitcake Patent application

Here there is no patent, merely an application. But the applicant wants to extract $$$ and so will issue an IPR declaration which would be funny if not for the outcome of case 8.

Likely result, WG runs away from possibly encumbered technology.

Until we have a reform of the patent system there is nothing useful that such a board could do. The only useful response to an IPR claim is to find a work around. And that is not something very many people can do.

---

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:05:21 -0800

> advantage of a standing board is familiarity with patents and
Patents and Procedures.

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:44:27 -0500

> provide a model for a Linux open source program, without the actual code

Well, a key part of the W3C model is that you can't even post on a wg
mailing list without you and/or your organization signing contract (I
believe they require an ink signature, but I'm not 100% sure of that),
or being explicitly invited by the chair as an "guest" or "invited
expert", and with everyone in the wg being told that any postings from
said "guest" must be treated as "unclean, unclean!" since they haven't
signed the ink contract.  

I will not, wryly, that having a closed mailing list does solve the
FSF problem, since they will no longer be able to spam our mailing
lists.  The question is whether the cure is worse than the disease.

However, for you to say that this isn't a big deal to adapt to IETF
mechanisms is handwaving --- unless you're saying that closed
workgroups that require legal contracts to be signed before anyone is
allowed to participate is a good thing.... ?

						- Ted

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:24:41 -0500

- Ted

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:54:49 -0800

This discussion of IPR seems to be running in circle. Can't we switch to something else, e.g. whether RFC could be written in some other format than ASCII text?

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:06:55 -0500

On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:54:49 -0800
Christian Huitema <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This discussion of IPR seems to be running in circle. Can't we switch
> to something else, e.g. whether RFC could be written in some other
> format than ASCII text?
> 
Sorry, that idea is patented or something.  No, I've got it -- it's a
W3C trade secret.

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Feb 2009 10:20:54 -0000

>useful in terms of meeting your stated goals?

I wasn't kidding when I said submit a draft.

I realize that the chances of a significant change to the IETF's IPR
policy are pretty slim, but if we find nobody finds it important
enough to spend an hour throwing together a draft describing what he
thinks we should do, we can stop now.

R's,
John

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:23:47 -0800 (PST)

> I wasn't kidding when I said submit a draft.

Neither was I.

> thinks we should do, we can stop now.

+1

				Ned

---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:57:41 +0100

Hi Larry,

As you know better than most here, including myself, W3C uses two very
different bodies to cope with IPR matters:

1. the PSIG, a standing committee, issues advise on policy interpretation
and maintains the policy FAQ.  To the best of my knowledge, the PSDIG does
not look at individual patents or (draft) W3C Recommendations.

2. PAGs are formed whenever W3C has obtained knowledge that a patent may be
relevant to a (forthcoming) W3C Recommendation, AND that patent claims may
not be available under licensing terms compatible with the W3C policy.  They
have a very clear mission: clarify, whether the draft Recommendation can be
practiced in disregard of the patent, whether there could be a
design-around, or recommend that the Recommendation not be published.

The PSIG is, IMHO, as useful body and does useful work.  It's equivalent is
the IPR WG (just concluded).  If and when we have trouble with the policy
and/or its interpretation, IMHO, the IPR WG should be restarted.  Our
oversight on the copyright RFCs may be such a reason.

PAGs, OTOH, have no equivalent in the IETF, and IMHO also have a history of
failure in W3C---which leads me to question their value for the IETF.  My
understanding of the very limited number of W3C PAGs that have been called
on, the VoiceXML PAGs wrapped up without providing technical design-around
recommendations---or advice to consider the patent in question as irrelevant
to the cause---because community pressure inside W3C as a whole led the
rightholder to change its licensing arrangements.  And, in case of the REX
PAG, the outcome was the the REX spec (which was IMHO quite useful, but I'm
biased here) was rescinded.  A somewhat different approach was chosen
instead.  However, my understanding is that the very limited, if any,
"analysis" that took place in the REX PAG was NOT fed back into the design
process.  Plus, the REX case enjoyed full cooperation of the rightholder on
the encumbrance analysis front, though not necessarily on the licensing
commitment front.  I'm not going into the ugly cross-SDO politics that
played a role here.

My personal view on PAGs, therefore, is that they have not delivered what
they promised.  I can also understand why: the analysis of third party
patents can be, depending on the legislation you are in, quite risky;
speaking in public about the analysis is almost always risky (willful
infringement, liability aspects, ...).

If PAGs in the W3C---with its infrastructure of attorneys on staff, certain
confidentiality requirements, and a very clear policy on what licensing
terms are acceptable and what are not---are that "useful", how could a
similar IETF effort possibly work?  The IETF has no membership, no attorneys
on staff, not enough budget to retain attorneys to enable the analysis of
the dozens (hundreds now?) of IPR disclosures and disclosed patents it
receives every year, and no confidentiality model worth mentioning.

Beyond that, the vast majority of *committed* IETF participants (those who
do the vast majority of the technical work), and their sponsors (who pay for
the vast majority of the technical work), appear to be quite happy with the
licensing environment we have here.

To summarize, I believe that spending cycles in order to attempt to adapt a
non working mechanism, designed for a very different business environment,
so to fix a non-problem, is not worth my time.  For more than one reason.

Regards,
Stephan

P.s.: whatever we do, it would not be enough to make radicals such as the
FSF happy anyway... so why bother.

---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:43:57 -0800

Stephan Wenger wrote:
> they promised.  

Hi Stephan, 

As always, I appreciate your response. Allow me to suggest, though, that the
examples you cited prove the success of PAGs, at least as I hoped they would
be.

Section 7 of the W3C Patent Policy was a carefully crafted compromise that
finally ended three years of acrimonious debate in the W3C Patent Policy
Working Group. It got so bad at one meeting that I, as an invited expert and
representative of the open source community, threatened to shoot a water
pistol that Danny Weitzner gave me at one of the opponents of that
royalty-free W3C policy. :-) 

So when I suggest W3C's Section 7 (PAGs), along with the PSIG, as a model
for IETF, I fully expect arguments.

You described two W3C PAG situations, one in which "community pressure
inside W3C as a whole led the rightholder to change its licensing
arrangements," and another in which "a somewhat different approach was
chosen instead." In what sense isn't that success if the goal--as it is in
W3C--is to avoid patent encumbrances to its specifications? I'm delighted
that our hard-fought compromise PAG solution to patent encumbrances worked
for the W3C community as intended!

I recognize that there is no consensus in IETF to refuse patent encumbrances
entirely. But that's not the issue for an IPR Advisory Board. Such boards do
not set policy, they advise about its implications. So if an IETF IPR
Advisory Board were to say to the working group, "that's a serious patent
and it will cost money to make and use products...," then IETF can still
decide to proceed. Nothing changes with respect to policy.

That, by the way, was what the compromise in W3C Patent Policy Section 7 was
all about. At the end of the day, even W3C can elect to proceed with a
patent-encumbered standard. However, from my perspective it is fortunate
that, as a result of the PAGs, the community is likely to figure out
collectively how to work around the encumbrance given the right skills
applied to the problem!

That's really what opponents of an IPR Advisory Board fear. That's what
these same people feared when the PAGs were first proposed as a compromise
in W3C.

Best regards,

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

> From: Stephan Wenger [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 10:58 AM
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
<snip>

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:54:05 -0800

I already tried weaving that particular bright shiny object. plus the suggestion that we move from a three stage standards process to two. And it did not work.
 
Quick someone mention nazis.

________________________________

From: [email-masked] on behalf of Christian Huitema
Sent: Thu 2/19/2009 12:54 AM
To: Theodore Tso; Lawrence Rosen
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Proposal to create IETF IPR Advisory Board

-- Christian Huitema