in the timeframe available to us.
The essence of the deal is:
1. The Operational Communities decide where the Trust is to provide
licenses, initially PTI
2. An OC wants to move its registry work from PTI to another body,
the Trust will revoke that license from PTI and license the other
body
3. All OCs want to move the registry work from PTI to another body,
the Trust will revoke the licenses from PTI and license the other
body
4. The Trust will consult with the OC regarding the terms of future
License agreements to identify what changes may need to be made.
5. The Trust becomes aware of an infringement of the IANA
trademarks by an unlicensed third party, the Trust will consult with
the OCs to inform its judgment as to whether and how to take action.
As to registering the marks globally, the IETF marks are registered
globally, and it would seem to make sense to do the same for the
IANA marks. I have requested cost information from the Trust
trademark firm to explore that possibility. The Trust would consult
with the OCs prior to taking such action.
As a practical matter, there is no opportunity to make any changes
to the Trust Agreement in the timeframe this deal needs to get done.
Come January 2017, or anytime, if there are items the OCs want to
clarify or change the Trust will be open to that discussion.
Let’s get the deal done.
Best
Ray
Jorges,
Thank-you for succinctly capturing the key 2 or 3 issues for discussion here. In my view, the points you raise highlight where we need to focus our primary energy as follows:
1. What we have not accepted, and what we do not believe we can accept, is any arrangement in which the Trust is subject to "approvals" by the CCG. We remain convinced that such acceptance would be contrary to
the Trust's anticipated fiduciary responsibility as the holder of the Marks, and the Trustees cannot responsibly expose the Trust to such a threat. We believe that any independent trust would face this problem.
2. In addition, we do not think that, given the terms of our Trust Agreement, the Trust is capable of acting as a "steward" for other operational communities. The existing Trust Agreement also does not permit the Trust to transfer away any asset once it is owned by the Trust, so we cannot accept any term that anticipates such a transfer.
3. We realize that some people would prefer to amend some terms of the IETF Trust Agreement. That may be possible in the future in order to accommodate some of the above worries. But all changes have to go through the IETF consensus process, and there simply isn't time to do that this year. Hence our agreement must work with the Trust as it currently exists.
Jonathan
We have attached for your review clean and redlined versions of the Community Agreement and License Agreement, which have been marked against the versions distributed on July 5. We have inserted numerous
comments in the marked version using the MS Word comment feature. These comments are intended to address specific text or suggestions made by CWG, RIR or IETF during the last round.
In these candidate agreements, we have accepted a number of suggestions both the operational communities. We know that everyone is anxious to get these done, and many of the changes seem to us to be reasonable and in keeping with the Trust’s responsibilities.
What we have not accepted, and what we do not believe we can accept, is any arrangement in which the Trust is subject to "approvals" by the CCG. We remain convinced that such acceptance would be contrary to
the Trust's anticipated fiduciary responsibility as the holder of the Marks, and the Trustees cannot responsibly expose the Trust to such a threat. We believe that any independent trust would face this problem.
In addition, we do not think that, given the terms of our Trust Agreement, the Trust is capable of acting as a "steward" for other operational communities. The existing Trust Agreement also does not permit the Trust to transfer away any asset once it is owned by the Trust, so we cannot accept any term that anticipates such a transfer.
We realize that some people would prefer to amend some terms of the IETF Trust Agreement. That may be possible in the future in order to accommodate some of the above worries. But all changes have to go through the IETF consensus process, and there simply isn't time to do that this year. Hence our agreement must work with the Trust as it currently exists.
We hope that you will agree that we are making substantive and collegial process here, and we hope you understand that the existing terms of the Trust Agreement are a hard limit on what we may possibly
do. We look forward to additional comments and to a fruitful discussion on our next call.
Contreras Legal Strategy LLC
1711 Massachusetts Ave. NW, No. 710
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