Re: [security-services] Liberty IPR Issues (was: Liberty ID-FF 1. 2 submissionto the SSTC)

["Conor P. Cahill" <concahill@aol.com>]

Anthony Nadalin wrote on 12/1/2003, 8:16 PM:
 >
 > > If the contributions meet the requirements for OASIS IPR
 > > disclosures, I think it is time to move on.
 >
 > There are companies that still have concerns o that the contributions
 > don't meet the requirements for OASIS IPR disclosures or have further
 > questions,

Then those companies have an obligation to point to the IPR requirement 
that isn't being met.  So far, the questions have been "well, we admit 
that you meet the requuirements of the IPR disclosure rules, but we want 
you to go farther".

So, if you want to raise issues, they should be issues around the 
existing IPR disclosure rules in OASIS and point to specific examples 
where the disclosures have not met those rules.

 > and seems you just want to ignore these and move on and force
 > everyone to accept.

Not at all.  I'm not forcing anyone to do anything.  I'm saying that we 
have a set of rules that we all need to live by and I'm pushing back at 
people who are trying to change the rules.  I'm also pushing back at 
people trying to create FUD around the contribution when there really 
isn't any FUD and when a direct comparison is made to the disclosures 
made by the companies raising the issue in other TCs, the things that 
are being asked for are not in the other disclosures.

IBM's IPR disclosure in the WSSTC did not grant derivative rights.  In 
fact it did not grant any rights whatsoever -- it only committed to a 
future grant.  And that committment was only good for the IP necessary 
to implement the contribution.  There was no statement that IPR would be 
granted for anything that the WSSTC would do.

 > > There are still way too many questions that exist around exactly
 > > what will be done, how it will be done, when it will be done,
 > > etc. to try to nail down exactly >what IP will be included
 > > and therefore what IPR grants will be needed.
 >
 > Well we had better have some expectations before we move on and
 > this is what we are asking for.

The point that I was trying to make was that the unanswered questions 
are in the area of if/how the stuff is going to be used.  Nobody will 
grant a TC a blank IPR check saying that whatever you do, we will grant 
you the IPR to do it.  An IPR grant, from the grantor's point of view, 
must be specific to the IP that is being used and, in many cases, how it 
is being used.

If you think that this isn't the case, I ask you to show me such grants 
made by IBM in any OASIS SSTC.  In fact, I haven't been able to find any 
IPR grants that allow derivative implementations within any of the OASIS 
SSTCs.

Of course, if you think that all parties in the SSTC should grant 
up-front IPR rights to anything that the SSTC should do, I will ask you 
to step up and be the first company to do so.  Let IBM make an IPR grant 
that covers anything that the SSTC should do.

I'm guessing that IBM wouldn't want to make such a grant either.

Conor