Subject: [Roll] IPR ROLL

From: JP Vasseur <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:41:47 +0100

Dear all,

When I look back over the last six to nine months I am really  
impressed with the progress we have made developing RPL. There are  
multiple implementations already in progress to show that the solution  
can really work.

The IPR issue is very important, of course. So far quite a few people  
have made comments, but I do not see a clear consensus and I would  
like to hear from more people.

At the same time, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to  
judge the consensus on this issue because my company affiliation might  
be considered to influence my independent IETF role. Therefore I have  
asked our Routing Area Director Adrian Farrel to take the judgement  
decision.

Thanks Adrian for accepting to do this job.

JP.

---

From: JP Vasseur <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:46:37 +0100

> multiple implementations already in progress to show that the  
> solution can really work.
>
> The IPR issue is very important, of course. So far quite a few  
> people have made comments, but I do not see a clear consensus and I  
> would like to hear from more people.
>
> judge the consensus on this issue because my company affiliation  
> might be considered to influence my independent IETF role. Therefore  
> I have asked our Routing Area Director Adrian Farrel to take the  
> judgement decision.
>

---

From: John E Drake <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:20:06 -0800

JP and Adrian,

I hope you interpreted my e-mail of several days ago as indicating that I think it makes sense to proceed with draft-ietf-roll-rpl.

Thanks,

John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of JP
> Vasseur
> Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 12:47 PM
> To: ROLL WG; Adrian Farrel
> Subject: Re: [Roll] IPR ROLL
> 
> > Dear all,
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Roll mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/roll

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:12:02 -0600

Hi JP and Adrian,

I am not in favor of proceeding with
draft-ietf-roll-rpl
because most of us only found out about the IPR six months after the initial
draft.

Regards,

Yusuf

From:

JP Vasseur <[email-masked]>

To:

ROLL WG <[email-masked]>, Adrian
Farrel <[email-masked]>

Date:

02/12/2010 02:51 PM

Subject:

Re: [Roll] IPR ROLL

Roll mailing list

[email-masked]

---

From: Joakim Eriksson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:34:30 +0100

I vote for ROLL WG to continue with RPL.

Modifying RPL will likely only move us from these patents right
into some other, yet unknown, patents. I believe that it will
be very hard to find a reasonably good protocol that is not
conflicting with some patents.

Best regards,
-- Joakim Eriksson, SICS

JP Vasseur skrev 2010-02-12 21:41:
> Dear all,
>
> When I look back over the last six to nine months I am really impressed
> with the progress we have made developing RPL. There are multiple
> implementations already in progress to show that the solution can really
> work.
>
> have made comments, but I do not see a clear consensus and I would like
> to hear from more people.
>
> At the same time, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to judge
> the consensus on this issue because my company affiliation might be
> considered to influence my independent IETF role. Therefore I have asked
> our Routing Area Director Adrian Farrel to take the judgement decision.
>

---

From: "M. B. Anand" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:54:57 -0500

As someone who has sadly had to spend long amounts of time on patent-related
matters going over words and phrases despite being an engineer and not a
lawyer, I can provide the following inputs, divided into two parts, IPR in
general (#1 to #5) and the Cisco declaration (#6, #7) in particular:

1. I would think as a practical matter it is impossible to have a design
goal of not infringing on patents  - even a cursory search will produce
thousands and of course it is certainly not a matter of the US patents
alone, there are patents in every country out there. Even a less stringent
goal of "small chance" would be unachievable.

2. And even if that is done, exactly how to avoid this or that is no simple
matter. Exactly what a claim means or does not mean, is what gets disputed,
and gets settled in hearings and courts. To pre-decide all this is obviously
not possible.

3. At best one might decide post-facto, whether something, after knowing
what it is, infringes or not, and that would still be a matter of opinion.
You might spend a few tens of K $, or hundreds of K and get a legal opinion
on whether RPL infringes on some Cisco patent, but that also means not a
whole lot. The matter only gets settled eventually in a suit if there is a
dispute.

4. There are plenty of jaw-dropping patents, for example things like what
might sound to all us engineers as simply source routing. Anyone involved in
smart grid activities in the US might know this from several recent cases.

5. Therefore, remember that the absence of evidence, is not evidence of
absence. Just because no one declares to have IPR in IETF on whatever
standard is drafted absolutely does not mean there isn't any. I would in
fact bet that it is quite the opposite.

6. One almost gets the impression from some of the discussion that lots of
people are very concerned for the day they might decide to sue Cisco for
royalties for something (are you quaking in your boots, yet, Dan :-)) I find
that in itself to be a remote probability.

7. But let's say it is real and someone stands to make gazillions in
royalties from Cisco. Even then as far as RPL is concerned, Cisco says they
will provide royalty-bearing licenses for "reasonable, non-discriminatory"
terms. That would mean, I think, a) they won't say, get lost, no RPL license
for you because you decided to sue, b) they won't charge you anything
special and provide a license at the same terms as others. Is that correct,
Dan ? I would think this is quite fair.

For all these reasons, I would support moving forward with the RPL draft.

Regards,
Anand.