Big Loss re IETF Standards Patents

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

This is a terribly destructive article, but while its framing is beyond
unfortunate, it tells some bad news we need to know.  We should have been on
this.  This fight should be the easy piece of the information freedom
struggle.  Brace yourself for the article's cringe-inducing presentation and
substance.  Link forwarded by a C-FIT list member. -- Seth


> http://news.com.com/2100-1013-996351.html?tag=fd_top


Standards Group Beats Back Patent Foes


By Paul Festa 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 10, 2003, 8:49 AM PT


An attempt to persuade a key Internet standards body to abandon its use of
patented technologies has ended in defeat.

The intellectual property rights (IPR) working group of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) late Wednesday made official what members had
known for some time: There is no consensus within the group to restrict the
use of patented technologies in IETF standards. 

"It's clear that there is no consensus to recharter to change the IETF's IPR
policy," Steve Bellovin, the working group's chairman and an AT&T network
security researcher, wrote in an e-mail to working group members. "In fact,
there is likely consensus the other way, that we should not recharter at
this time."

The IETF's vote to maintain its status quo, which lets working groups
continue to use patented technologies with so-called reasonable and
nondiscriminatory (RAND) licenses, comes after the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) went through more than a year of public controversy over the same
issue.

The use of RAND technologies in standards has attracted widespread and
organized criticism in the age of open-source development. Open-source
developers claim that the threat of being charged royalties for using a
standard makes it useless in the context of open-source licenses, which are
usually granted free of charge. 

Bellovin reported to the working group two weeks after it discussed the
issue at the IETF's spring meeting in San Francisco. The IETF formed the
working group following a contentious July meeting in Yokohama, Japan, where
participants questioned the IETF's current policy that neither restricts nor
discourages the use of patented technology in standards. 

The IPR working group was chartered to clarify limited aspects of the IETF's
current policy, rather than to restrict the use RAND technologies per se.
According to the original charter, the group would recharter to reconsider
the RAND policy as a whole if a consensus emerged in favor of doing so.

Following the San Francisco meeting and an e-mail comment period that ended
Wednesday night, Bellovin made his determination that the consensus showed
opposition to fundamentally changing the patent policy.

Now the working group will conclude its work on three IPR documents having
primarily to do with how IETF members must disclose patented contributions.
The working group then expects to dissolve.

But Bellovin warned members that the issue of using patented technologies in
IETF standards was not yet put to rest.

"That doesn't mean that the IPR issue is dead," Bellovin wrote. "There are a
lot of people who remain concerned about it, often with good reason. What
isn't clear is what structure should be created for the ongoing
discussion...The only option that is effectively ruled out at this time is a
new working group specifically chartered to change the current IPR policy;
that issue has to be considered settled for the time being."

In the case of the W3C, that standards body began with a policy that curbed
the use of patented technologies. Large patent-holders, including IBM and
Microsoft, lobbied the group to start permitting the use of RAND
technologies, but opponents, including open-source activists, managed to
ward off a major change at the Web consortium.

At the IETF, by contrast, there has been a long-standing policy allowing the
use of patented technology in standards.

In an e-mail interview, Bellovin said his group was walking a fine line
between restricting the use of its technologies by using patents and
thwarting development by restricting patented contributions.

"Technology can be unavailable" because it is RAND or because it is royalty
free, he wrote. "RAND because of its effect on open-source developers. (And
royalty free) because some IPR holders won't bring their technology to the
IETF if they can't profit from it. We need to figure out how to move forward
to avoid both sets of problems. The IPR question isn't closed by any means,
nor should it be."

One critic of the IETF's RAND policy called Bellovin's concerns misplaced.

"We need to be clear that making a patent available for (free) use in a
standard doesn't mean the patent holder waives all royalties," wrote Bruce
Perens, the open source activist and recent recipient of a $50,000 annuity
to fight the use of RAND technologies by standards bodies. "The royalty-free
terms at W3C are for implementation of the standard only, not for any other
purpose--even in the same program. That gives the patent holders lots of
room to make money."

Anticipating the working group's decision on whether to reevaluate the IPR
policy as a whole, Perens in November threatened to pack the IETF's IPR
mailing list with open-source advocates. He later backed off that threat,
and Bellovin expressed relief that he did so.

"As far as I can see, there has been no attempt to pack the mailing list,
which makes me happy," Bellovin wrote in the e-mail interview. "It shows
that everyone, even those who disagree, respect the process."

-- 

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