Network Working Group                                        S. Bradner
Internet-Draft                                               Harvard U.
                                                                 Editor
                                                           October 2002

                       IETF Rights in Submissions

                <draft-bradner-submission-rights-01.txt>

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
   of Section 10 of RFC 2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

Abstract
   The IETF policies about rights in submissions to the IETF is designed
   to ensure that IETF contributions can be made available to the IETF
   and Internet communities while permitting the authors to retain as
   many rights in the document as possible. This memo details the IETF
   policies on rights in submissions to the IETF. It also describes the
   objectives that the policies are designed to meet.

                Copyright (C) The Internet Society. (2002)

1. Introduction
   Under the laws of most countries and current international treaties
   (for example the "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and
   Artistic Work" [Berne]), authors obtain numerous rights in the works
   they produce automatically upon producing them.  These rights include
   copyrights, moral rights and other rights.  In many cases, if the
   author produces a work within the scope of his or her employment,
   these rights are usually assigned to the employer, either by



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   operation of law or, in many cases, under contract.

   In order for works to be used within the IETF process, certain
   limited rights in all contributions must be granted to the IETF and
   ISOC.  In addition, contributors must make representations to IETF
   and ISOC regarding their ability to grant these rights.  These
   necessary rights and representations until now have been laid out in
   Section 10 of [RFC 2026]. In the years since [RFC 2026] was published
   there have been a number of times when the exact intent of Section 10
   has been the subject of vigorous debate within the IETF community.
   The aim of this document is to clarify various ambiguities in Section
   10 of [RFC 2026] that led to these debates and to amplify the policy
   in order to clarify what the IETF is currently doing.


   Sections 2 and 3 of this document address the rights in submissions
   to the IETF previously covered by Section 10 of [RFC 2026] and the
   "Note Well" explanatory text presented at many IETF activities.
   Sections 4, 5 and 6 then explain the rationale for these provisions,
   including some of the clarifications that have become understood
   since the adoption of [RFC 2026].  The rules and procedures set out
   in this document are not intended to substantially modify or alter
   IETF's or ISOC's current policy toward contributions and submissions
   made to the IETF.

   A companion document [IETF IPR] deals with rights in technologies
   developed or specified as part of the IETF process.  This document is
   not intended to address those issues.

   The rights addressed in this document fall into the following
   categories:

   o  rights to make use of contributed material
   o  copyrights in IETF documents
   o  rights to produce derivative works
   o  rights to use trademarks

   This document is not intended as legal advice.  If you would like a
   legal interpretation of your rights or the rights of the IETF in any
   contributions you make, you are advised to consult your own legal
   advisor.

2. Rights in IETF Submissions

2.1.  General Policy

   In all matters of copyright and document procedures, the intent is to
   benefit the Internet community and the public at large, while



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   respecting the legitimate rights of others.

2.2  Confidentiality Obligations

   No contribution that is subject to any requirement of confidentiality
   or any restriction on its dissemination may be considered in any part
   of the Internet Standards Process, and there must be no assumption of
   any confidentiality obligation with respect to any such contribution.

2.3.  Granting of Rights and Permissions

   By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the
   contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and
   conditions, and to grant the following rights, on their own behalf,
   on behalf of the organization (if any) the contributor represents and
   on behalf of the owners of any proprietary rights in the
   contribution.

   a. To the extent that the contribution or any portion thereof is
      protected by copyright and other rights of authorship, the
      contributor, the organization he or she represents (if any) and
      the owners of any such proprietary rights in the contribution,
      grant an unlimited perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-
      free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the IETF under
      all intellectual property rights in the contribution:

      (A) to copy, publish, display and distribute the contribution as
         part of the IETF standards process,

      (B) unless explicitly disallowed in the written terms of the
         contribution [pursuant to one of the notices contained in
         Section 3.3 below], to prepare derivative works that are based
         on or incorporate all or part of the contribution within the
         IETF standards process, the license to such derivative works to
         be of the same scope as the license to the original
         contribution, and

      (C) to reproduce any trademarks, service marks or trade names
         which are included in the contribution solely in connection
         with the reproduction, distribution or publication of the
         contribution and derivative works thereof as permitted by this
         paragraph, and in all cases reproducing any trademark or
         service mark identifiers used by the contributor of the
         contribution.

   b. The contributor grants the IETF and ISOC permission to reference
      the name(s) and address(es) of the contributor(s) and of the
      organization(s) s/he represents or is sponsored by (if any).



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   c.  Every copy of a contribution made pursuant to the licenses
      granted under paragraph (a)(A) above, and all derivative works
      made pursuant to the licenses granted under paragraph (a)(B)
      above, must include, in unaltered form, the notices included in
      such contribution pursuant to Section 3 below.

2.4  Representations and Warranties.  With respect to each contribution,
   the contributor(s) each represent that to the best of their knowledge
   and ability:

   a. The contribution properly acknowledges all major contributors.

   b. No information in the contribution is confidential and the IETF,
      ISOC, and its affiliated organizations may freely disclose any
      information in the contribution.

   c. There are no limits to the contributor's ability to make the
      grants acknowledgments and agreements herein that are reasonably
      and personally known to the contributor.

   d.  The contributor has not intentionally included in the
      contribution any material which is defamatory or untrue or which
      is illegal under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the
      contributor has his or her principal place of business or
      residence.

   e.  All trademarks, trade names, service marks and other proprietary
      names used in the contribution and personally and reasonably known
      to the contributor are clearly designated as such.

2.5 The contributor acknowledges that the ISOC and IETF have no duty to
   publish or otherwise use or disseminate any contribution.  IETF
   reserves the right to withdraw or cease using any contribution that
   does not comply with the requirements of Sections 2.3 and 2.4 above.



3.  Copyright notice required in IETF Documents to support these rights
   grants

   The IETF requires that a copyright notice and disclaimer be
   reproduced verbatim in all IETF Documents.  This requirement protects
   IETF and its participants from liabilities connected with these
   documents.  The copyright notice also alerts readers that the
   document is an IETF document, and that ISOC claims copyright rights
   in certain aspects of the document, such as its layout, the RFC
   numbering convention and the prefatory language of the document.
   This legend is not intended to imply that ISOC has obtained ownership



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   of the contribution itself, which is retained by the author(s) or
   remains in the public domain, as applicable.

   Additional copyright notices are not permitted in IETF documents
   except in the case where the document is the product of a joint
   development effort between the IETF and another standards development
   organization.  Such exceptions must be approved on an individual
   basis by the IAB.



3.1 Copyright notice and disclaimer

   The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included at
   the end of all IETF documents.


   "Copyright (C) The Internet Society (year). Except as set forth
   below, authors retain all their rights.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
   and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
   kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
   Internet organizations, except as needed for the  purpose of
   developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for rights
   in submissions defined in the IETF Standards Process must be
   followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
   English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/S HE
   REPRESENTS (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
   ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
   INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
   INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE."

3.2 Notices re. Derivative Works and publication rights.

   In addition to the foregoing, each IETF Internet Draft must contain



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   one of the following three notices regarding derivative works and
   publication rights on it's first page:

   a. This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all
      provisions of section 2 of RFC XXXX.

   b. This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all
      provisions of Section 2 of RFC XXXX except that the right to
      produce derivative works is not granted.

   c. This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all
      provisions of Section 2 RFC XXXX, but the author does not provide
      the IETF with any rights other than to publish as an Internet-
      Draft

   [ note to the RFC Editor - XXXX above to be replaced with the number
   of this document ]


4. Definitions

4.1 contribution: in the context of this memo, a contribution to the
   IETF is any submission for publication as an Internet Draft or RFC
   and any statements made within the context of an IETF process. Such
   statements include verbal statements in IETF meetings, as well as
   written and electronic communications made at any time or place,
   which are addressed to
   o  the IETF plenary session,
   o  any IETF working group or portion thereof,
   o  the IESG, or any member thereof on behalf of the IESG,
   o  the IAB or any member thereof on behalf of the IAB,
   o  any IETF mailing list, including the IETF list itself, any working
      group or design team list, or any other list functioning under
      IETF auspices,
   o  the RFC Editor or the Internet-Drafts function

   Statements made outside of an IETF meeting, mailing list or other
   function, that are clearly not intended to be input to an IETF
   activity, group or function, are not contributions in the context of
   this memo.

4.2 IETF Standards Process: the activities undertaken by the IETF in any
   of the settings described in 4.1 above.

4.3 contributors: individuals making contributions

4.4 IETF documents:  RFCs and Internet Drafts.




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4.5 RFC: the basic publication series for the IETF.  RFCs are published
   by the RFC Editor and once published are never modified.  (See [RFC
   2026] sec 2.1)

4.6 Internet Draft: temporary documents used in the IETF process.
   Internet Drafts are published by the IETF Secretariat and have a
   nominal maximum lifetime in the Secretariat's public directory of 6
   months after which they are removed.  Since Internet Drafts are
   archived many places on the Internet there is no effective limit on
   their lifetime. Internet Drafts that are under active consideration
   by the IESG are not removed from the Secretariat's public directory
   until that consideration is complete, in addition, the author of an
   Internet Draft can request that the lifetime in the Secretariat's
   public directory be extended when its expiration time is reached.
   (See [RFC 2026] sections 2.2 and 8)

4.7  IETF:  In the context of this document, the IETF includes all
   individuals who participate in meetings, working groups, functions
   and other activities which are organized or initiated by ISOC, the
   IESG or the IAB under the general designation of the Internet
   Engineering Task Force or IETF, but solely to the extent of such
   participation.

4.8  reasonably and personally known: A contributor's reasonable and
   personal knowledge. This means that we do not expect the contributor
   to search his or her employer's legal files for relevant information,
   but similarly that we do not expect a contributor to remain
   deliberately ignorant of information, a patent application for
   example, that would reasonably be expected to be within his or her
   knowledge.


5. Exposition of why these procedures are the way they are

5.1 Rights Granted in Contributions

   The IETF/ISOC must obtain the right to publish a contribution as an
   RFC or an Internet Draft from the contributors.

   A primary objective of this policy is to obtain from the document
   authors only the non-exclusive rights that are needed to develop and
   publish IETF documents and to use the contributions in the IETF
   standards process while leaving all other rights with the authors.

   The non-exclusive rights that the IETF needs are:

   a. the irrevocable right to publish the document
   b. the right to let the document be freely reproduced in the formats



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      that the IETF publishes it in
   c. the right to let 3rd parties translate it into languages other
      than English
   d. except where explicitly excluded (see sec 3.2), the right to make
      derivative works within the IETF process.

   The authors retain all other rights, but cannot withdraw the above
   rights from the IETF/ISOC.

5.2 Rights to use Contributed Material

   Because, under the laws of most countries and applicable
   international treaties, copyright rights come into existence whenever
   a work of authorship is created (but see Section 6 below regarding
   public domain documents), and IETF cannot make use of contributions
   if it does not have sufficient rights with respect to these copyright
   rights, it is important that the IETF receive assurances from all
   contributors that they have the authority to grant the IETF the
   rights that they claim to grant.  Without this assurance, IETF and
   its participants would run a greater risk of liability to the owners
   of these rights.

   To this end, IETF asks contributors to give the assurances in Section
   2.4 above.  These assurances are requested, however, only to the
   extent of the contributor's reasonable and personal knowledge. (See
   sec 4.8)


5.3 Right to produce derivative works

   The IETF needs to be able to evolve its documents in response to
   experience gained in the deployment of the technologies described in
   the documents, to incorporate developments in research and to react
   to changing conditions on the Internet and other IP networks.  In
   order to do this the IETF must be able to produce derivatives of its
   documents thus the IETF must obtain the right from contributors to
   produce derivative works. Note though that the IETF only requires
   this right for the production of derivative works within the IETF
   process.  The IETF does not need, nor does it obtain, the right to
   let derivative works be created outside of the IETF process.

   The right to produce derivative works is required for all IETF
   standards track documents and for most non-standards track documents.
   There are two exceptions to this requirement:  documents describing
   proprietary technologies and documents that are republications of the
   work of other standards organizations.

   The right to produce derivative works must be granted (i.e., an



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   Internet Draft must be published with boilerplate "a" from sec 3.2)
   before an IETF working group can accept a document as a working group
   document or otherwise work on it.  Note: a working group can discuss
   any Internet Draft with the aim to decide if it should become a
   working group document, whether or not the right to produce
   derivative works has been yet granted.  For independent submissions,
   the right to produce derivative works must be granted for all
   standards track documents before the IESG will issue an IETF Last-
   Call and, for most non-standards track documents, before the IESG
   will consider the Internet Draft for publication.

   The IETF has historically encouraged organizations to publish details
   of their technologies, even where the technologies are proprietary
   ones, because understanding how existing technology is being used
   helps when developing new technology.  But organizations which
   publish information about proprietary technologies are frequently not
   willing to have the IETF produce revisions of the technologies and
   then claim that the IETF version is the "new version" of the
   organization's technology. Organizations which feel this way can
   specify that the document can be published following the other
   provisions of this section but withhold the right to produce
   derivative works.

   In addition, IETF documents frequently make normative references to
   standards or recommendations developed by other standards
   organizations.  Since the publications of some standards
   organizations are not public documents it can be quite helpful to the
   IETF to republish some of these documents as IETF documents so that
   the IETF community can have open access to them to better understand
   what they are referring to.  In these cases the IETF documents can be
   published without the right for the IETF to produce derivative works.

   In both of the above cases in which the production of derivative
   works is excluded, the contributor must include a special legend in
   the contribution, as specified in section 3.2, in order to notify
   IETF participants about this restriction.

5.4  Rights to use trademarks

   Contributors may wish to seek trademark or service mark protection on
   any terms that are coined or used in their contributions.  IETF makes
   no judgment about the validity of any such trademark rights.
   However, we require each contributor, under the licenses described in
   Section 2.3.a above, to grant IETF a perpetual license to use any
   such trademarks or service marks solely in exercising its rights to
   reproduce, publish and modify the contribution.  This license does
   not authorize any IETF participant to use any trademark or service
   mark in connection with any product or service offering, but only in



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   the context of IETF documents and discussions.

   Contributors who claim trademark rights to terms in their
   contributions are requested to specifically state what conditions
   apply to implementers of the technology relative to the use of any
   claimed trademarks.  Such statements should be submitted in the same
   way as is done for other intellectual property claims. (see [IETF
   IPR] sec 6)

5.5  Who does this apply to?

   Rights and licenses granted to the IETF are granted to all
   individuals noted in section 4.6, irrespective of their employment or
   institutional affiliation.  However, these licenses do not extend
   broadly to the employers, sponsors or institutions of such
   individuals, nor do they authorize the individuals to exercise any
   rights outside the specific context of the IETF standards process.


6. Contributions Not Subject to Copyright

   Certain documents, including those produced by the U.S. government
   and those which are in the public domain, may not be protected by the
   same copyright and other legal rights as other documents.
   Nevertheless, we ask each contributor to grant to the IETF the same
   rights as he or she would grant, and to make the same
   representations, as though the contribution were a proprietary
   document.  We ask for these grants and representations only to the
   extent that the contribution may be protected, and believe they are
   necessary to protect the IETF, the standards process and all IETF
   participants, and also because the IETF does not have the resources
   or wherewithal to make any independent investigation as to the actual
   proprietary status of any document submitted to it.

7. Inclusion of copyright notice

   Section three above defines a copyright notice to be included on IETF
   documents and in derivative works.  The full copyright notice does
   not need to be included in some specific types of derivative works:

   a/ MIBs and similar material commonly extracted from IETF documents,
      the following copyright notice should be included in the body of
      the material that will be extracted "Copyright (c) <year> The
      Internet Society. This version of this MIB module is part RFC
      xxxx, see the RFC itself for the full legal notices."

   b/ short excerpts of IETF documents presented in electronic help
      systems, for example, the descriptions for MIB variables, do not



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      need to include a copyright notice.


8  Security Considerations

   Documents describing IETF processes, such as this one, do not have an
   impact on the security of the network infrastructure or of Internet
   applications.


9. References

9.1 Normative references

   [RFC 2026]  Bradner, S.[ed], "The Internet Standards Process --
   Revision 3", RFC 2026, October 1996

   [IETF IPR] work in progress: draft-iprwg-technology-00.txt


9.2 Informative references

   [Berne] "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
   Work", http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/berne/index.html


10. Editor's Address

   Scott Bradner
   Harvard University
   29 Oxford St.
   Cambridge MA, 02138

   sob@harvard.edu
   +1 617 495 3864

11. Full copyright statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).  Except as set forth
   below, authors retain all their rights.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
   and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
   kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing



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   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
   Internet organizations, except as needed for the  purpose of
   developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for rights
   in submissions defined in the Internet Standards process must be
   followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
   English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/S HE
   REPRESENTS (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
   ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
   INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
   INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


































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