Subject: Question about the meaning of the following boilerplate statement...

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:39:22 -0800

Since this appears as a part of the legal boilerplate on a I-D I have 
three questions to ask..

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  

So then by US Law they are copyright under the US Copyright act since 
they are published by an agent in located in the US. The also are constrained 
by a set of steps and processes for those working groups as well 
including th the IETF's document templates.

   Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts.

OK - let me ask the questions about this ambiguous block of text:

1)   Is the Term of Art "Internet-Draft" a trademark of the IETF? - let 
me answer that question - NO...

Internet_draft:__http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4009%3Ai60kv1.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=Internet_Draft&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query
Internet-Draft yields one filer - and it was done last year in 2008- 
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4009:i60kv1.3.1

2)   OK - so we were told that the TRUST had taken care of this I 
thought. But it clearly has not been - so then let me also ask why was 
this not handled years ago by the Secretariat's office.

3)   If others are allowed to publish Internet-Drafts (as a Term of Art) 
does this mean they are republishing the IETF's IP's or that they are 
running a system competitively to the IETF's operations?

The reason I bring this up is that this one paragraph can be interpreted 
to mean that
"All of the IETF's Proprietary processes" are up for grabs just like its 
network IP.
This is true since the creation of an Internet-Draft (the object 
codified in the term of
art "Internet-Draft" by those process documents defining the IETF's 
process) is created
though a specific set of defined steps and the ability for others to 
publish Internet-Drafts
means that they also can use those process steps.

    If #3 was the intent then it needs to be disclosed to the sponsor's 
formally - since the IP rights being effected or controlled through the 
'contribution' are theirs.

Todd Glassey

---

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:37:44 -0800

TSG wrote:
> they are published by an agent in located in the US. The also are 
> constrained by a set of steps and processes for those working groups 
> as well including th the IETF's document templates.
>
>   Note that
> 1)   Is the Term of Art "Internet-Draft" a trademark of the IETF? - 
> let me answer that question - NO...
>
> 3)   If others are allowed to publish Internet-Drafts (as a Term of 
> Art) does this mean they are republishing the IETF's IP's or that they 
> are running a system competitively to the IETF's operations?
>
> The reason I bring this up is that this one paragraph can be 
> interpreted to mean that
> "All of the IETF's Proprietary processes" are up for grabs just like 
> its network IP.
Sorry - I forgot to mention why this was important - "they" (as in 
anyone who needs one) could theoretically publish an Internet-Draft, 
properly vet it on a private list and then build and run the 
interoperability testing for that protocol and declare it an 
IETF-Standard, and legally speaking I am betting the Court's would find 
it to be exactly that.  This would support the creation of 
Internet-Drafts and RFC's which never was seen by the IETF or its 
membership because of this licensing terminology & they could do this by 
creating a protocol between two players and vetting it privately between 
them. It is also arguable that the IETF could be forced to take formal 
notice of that RFC's number and respect it's issuance since it itself 
created this potential through the licensing models put in place by the 
Unholy Twins (BCP78 and BCP79) and their successors

Someone planning to issue their own IETF-Standard would merely set up an 
internal mailing alias to meet the WG Mailing List requirement and then 
vet the private protocol internally on that list. They can also change 
the licensing rights on this as well based on the ability to use the 
work and create derivatives of it, the licensing boilerplate on 
documents and the copyrights and even NoteWell can be turned off for 
these private groups.

The net of this is that the IETF has given itself away - and anyone can 
now run their own little IETF as a private operation. Hey even the old 
IESG trademark was formally abandoned and even though it was owned by a 
real-estate consortia the abandonment means that anyone can call 
themselves the IESG and issue a formal standard. 
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:e8rlnd.2.1
> formally - since the IP rights being effected or controlled through 
> the 'contribution' are theirs.
>
> Todd Glassey
>  
>
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