Subject: [Syslog] Huawei IPR claim

From: "Rainer Gerhards" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:52:18 +0200

Hi all,

I think I have some good news. Huawei has updated its IPR disclosure.
Please see

https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/ipr_detail_show.cgi?ipr_id=724

The license has dramatically been changed:

**************
If technology in this document is included in a standard adopted by IETF
and anyclaims of any Huawei patents are necessary for practicing the
standard, Huawei
will not assert any patents against any party that implements the
standard,
however that Huawei retains the right to assert its patents against any
party
that asserts any rights against Huawei; and Huawei retains the right to
assert
its patents against any product or portion thereof that is not necessary
for
compliance with the standard.
**************

I am a bit stunned that Huawei updated the disclosure silently (on the
20th). I am a bit puzzled if another update might again impose more
stringent terms. I still think the patent itself is theft of other
person's work. Unfortunately, the disclosure still does not mention
which section of the I-D is threatened by the patent.

But the change is a very welcome one and I wanted to make you aware of
it.

Rainer

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---

From: "Rainer Gerhards" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:10:42 +0200

Hi all,

once again some news. I have contacted the ffii.org, which nobody can
claim to be patent-friendly. This is the essential part of their reply:

_______________________________________________________________________
On the one hand this is indeed a very good example of how software  
patents obstruct standardisation, but on the other hand the license  
offered by Huawei for the patent is very good:

[snip - license from new IPR disclosure]

[snip...] people may  
merely see this as a responsible move by Huaewei to protect the  
standard from a patent ambush by other companies (by means of the  
"mutually assured destruction" clause in their license).

Of course, the problem remains that

a) there is no guarantee the patent will always be owned by Huaewei  
(e.g. the JPEG patent was originally also owned by a company which  
gave a similar license for it,  but then they went broke, Forgent  
bought them out and the rest is history as they say)
b) the license does not state it is non-revokable
c) lots of time is being wasted moving forward because of the dangers  
of the previous points.

_______________________________________________________________________

I also have to admit that these were the guys that acutally found the
update IPR disclosure. I had not indicated this in my previous mail
because I asked them for permission to use their name and had not yet
received it at the time of my posting.

Rainer 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rainer Gerhards [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 12:52 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [Syslog] Huawei IPR claim
> 
> Hi all,
>