Internet DRAFT - draft-terriberry-ipr-license

draft-terriberry-ipr-license







Network Working Group                                    T.B. Terriberry
Internet-Draft                                       Mozilla Corporation
Intended status: Informational                         February 18, 2013
Expires: August 22, 2013


                       Example IPR License Terms
                    draft-terriberry-ipr-license-00

Abstract

   This draft gives provides an example set of licensing terms for use
   in IPR disclosures that are compatible with the goals of the proposed
   video-codec working group for further discussion and refinement by
   participants at the IETF.  Although usage of such a license is
   strictly voluntary, the hope is that getting agreement on a set of
   terms before the bulk of the work begins will allow contributors to
   use a common license and minimize the amount of legal analysis that
   must be performed in order to deploy the codec.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 22, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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



Terriberry              Expires August 22, 2013                 [Page 1]

Internet-Draft                IPR License                  February 2013


   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.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  The License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.1.  License Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.2.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.3.  Termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Scope of the Grant  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  Termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.3.1.  A Reciprocity Clause  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.3.2.  Defensive Suspension  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   The goal of this license, using the words of the current video-codec
   charter [1], is to allow the contribution of IPR to a standard which
   "can be widely implemented and easily distributed among application
   developers, service operators, and end users.  The objective is to
   produce a codec that can be implemented, distributed, and deployed by
   open source and closed source software and hardware vendors, without
   the need to request a license, enter into a business agreement, pay
   licensing fees or royalties, or attempt to adhere to other onerous
   conditions or restrictions."

   This goal, particularly the compatibility with open-source licenses,
   precludes many forms of normal IPR licensing, including the
   requirement for each licensor to explicitly request a license or
   perform some overt act to activate a license.  The terms here also
   attempt to provide some amount of safety to those implementing
   standard from others also implementing the same standard, through the
   use of a defensive termination clause.

   Although this license is designed specifically for use with the
   video-codec effort, the terms have been kept generic enough to allow
   it to be used elsewhere.

2.  The License

2.1.  License Grant



Terriberry              Expires August 22, 2013                 [Page 2]

Internet-Draft                IPR License                  February 2013


   ___________ ("Licensor") hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide,
   non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in the
   "Termination" section below) license to make, have made, use, sell,
   offer to sell, import and otherwise transfer any Implementation or
   portion thereof, under all Necessary Claims of Licensor (the
   "License").

2.2.  Definitions

   "Original Specification" means draft-ietf-_______________.

   "Reference Implementation" means the implementation of the Original
   Specification made publicly available at ______________.

   "Specification" means the Original Specification or, at your option,
   any future update or new version of that specification issued as an
   RFC (Request for Comments) by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task
   Force).

   "Implementation" means any implementation (including the Reference
   Implementation) that complies fully with all non-optional portions of
   the Specification.

   "Licensee" means any party that has received the License, provided
   the License to such party has not been terminated under the
   "Termination" section below.

   "Necessary Claims" of a party means all claims of patents or patent
   applications that, (a) currently or at any time in the future, (i)
   are owned or controlled by such party or its Affiliates, or (ii) for
   which such party or its Affiliates has the authority to grant the
   License without the requirement to pay a royalty to any party other
   than an Affiliate, and (b) (i) for which there is no commercially
   viable means of implementing the Original Specification, including
   any optional portion thereof, without infringing such claims; or (ii)
   are infringed by the use of the Reference Implementation.

   "Affiliate" is any entity controlling, controlled by, or under common
   control with a party.

2.3.  Termination

   If you, directly or indirectly, including via an Affiliate,
   subsidiary, agent, or exclusive licensee, (a) file an action for
   infringement of a Necessary Claim, or (b) make any other written
   claim of infringement of a Necessary Claim, against any Licensee
   alleging that any Implementation, in whole or in part, constitutes
   direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent



Terriberry              Expires August 22, 2013                 [Page 3]

Internet-Draft                IPR License                  February 2013


   infringement, then any patent rights granted to you and your
   Affiliates under this License shall automatically terminate
   retroactively as of the date you first received the License.

3.  Discussion

3.1.  Scope of the Grant

   The scope of the grant is defined by two pieces: a specific draft
   (the "Original Specification") and a specific implementation (the
   "Reference Implementation").  The idea is to cover both the
   algorithms and methods that are required for interoperability (e.g.,
   for a video codec, the decoder specification), plus at least one set
   of algorithms and methods which can produce a useful implementation
   (such as an encoder, packet loss concealment (PLC) in the decoder,
   etc.).  Although people may still compete on making more optimized
   decoders, better encoders or better PLC, they are guaranteed that use
   of the reference implementation, at least, is safe.

   The "Original Specification" and "Reference Implementation" which
   define the scope of the grant are also kept separate from the
   "Specification" and "Implementation" which define how the licensed
   claims may be used.  This allows change control over what the
   standard says to remain with the IETF, while ensuring that the scope
   of the grant is not open-ended, so parties contributing their IPR
   know what they are giving.

3.2.  Termination

   The termination clause protects a Licensee from infringement claims
   by other Licensees.  Any Licensee that tries to assert patent claims
   against another Licensee will lose their own license, and find
   themselves exposed to potential lawsuits from all other Licensees.
   This is designed to minimize defections after the standard is
   deployed.

3.3.  Open Issues

3.3.1.  A Reciprocity Clause

   The license currently does not define a "reciprocity clause", wherein
   Licensees give other Licensees an explicit license back to any IPR
   they might own.  Instead it relies on the termination clause to
   achieve a similar, though not identical effect.  Reciprocity clauses
   have become more normal in recent patent licenses, and it may be
   worth adding one here.

3.3.2.  Defensive Suspension



Terriberry              Expires August 22, 2013                 [Page 4]

Internet-Draft                IPR License                  February 2013


   We have received some early feedback that our defensive termination
   clause may be too strong to qualify as RAND.  Another alternative is
   defensive suspension, wherein parties simply agree not to enforce
   their patents unless they themselves are sued.  We are still studying
   this issue.

4.  Acknowledgments

   Thanks to those who provided feedback on early drafts of this
   license.

5.  References

Author's Address

   Timothy B. Terriberry
   Mozilla Corporation
   650 Castro Street
   Mountain View, CA  94041
   USA

   Phone: +1 650 903-0800
   Email: tterribe@xiph.org



























Terriberry              Expires August 22, 2013                 [Page 5]