Sanctions Available for Application to Violators of IETF IPR Policy
RFC 6701

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         A. Farrel
Request for Comments: 6701                              Juniper Networks
Category: Informational                                       P. Resnick
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                 Qualcomm
                                                             August 2012

  Sanctions Available for Application to Violators of IETF IPR Policy

Abstract

   The IETF has developed and documented policies that govern the
   behavior of all IETF participants with respect to Intellectual
   Property Rights (IPR) about which they might reasonably be aware.

   The IETF takes conformance to these IPR policies very seriously.
   However, there has been some ambiguity as to what the appropriate
   sanctions are for the violation of these policies, and how and by
   whom those sanctions are to be applied.

   This document discusses these issues and provides a suite of
   potential actions that can be taken within the IETF community in
   cases related to patents.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any
   errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6701.

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RFC 6701       Sanctions for Violators of IETF IPR Policy    August 2012

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

1.  Introduction

   The IETF has developed and documented policies that govern the
   behavior of all IETF participants with respect to intellectual
   property about which they might reasonably be aware.  These are
   documented in RFC 3979 [BCP79] and are frequently brought to the
   attention of IETF participants.  This document summarizes and
   references those policies, but does not replace or stand in for the
   full statement of the policies found in [BCP79].  Readers and IETF
   participants need to be aware of the content of [BCP79].

   The policies set out in RFC 3979 [BCP79] state that each individual
   participant is responsible for disclosing or ensuring the disclosure
   of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) where all of the following
   apply:

   -  they are aware of the IPR

   -  the IPR is relevant to the IETF work they are participating in

   -  the IPR is owned by the individual or by a company that employs or
      sponsors the individual's work.

   Conformance to these IPR policies is very important, and there is a
   need to understand both what sanctions can be applied to participants
   who violate the policies, and who is in a position to apply the
   sanctions.

   This document discusses these issues and provides a suite of
   potential actions that can be taken within the IETF community in
   cases related to patents.  All of these sanctions are currently
   available in IETF processes, and at least two instances of violation
   of the IPR policy have been handled using some of the sanctions

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RFC 6701       Sanctions for Violators of IETF IPR Policy    August 2012

   listed.  As explicitly called out in Section 4, a posting rights (PR)
   action (described in [BCP25] and [RFC3683]) is an applicable sanction
   for the case of a breach of the IETF's IPR policy.

   Note: This document specifies some administrative sanctions that can
   be imposed by and through IETF administrative processes.  In
   particular, this document does not address or limit other legal
   sanctions, rights, or remedies that are available outside of the IETF
   or any of the legal rights or remedies that anyone has regarding IPR.

   This document does not consider the parallel, but important, issue of
   ways to actively promote conformance with the IETF's IPR policy.