Arising from yesterday’s meeting, I would like the following decisions to be made soon:
1. Confirm that the IETF Trust is a suitable party to hold the IPR, without any changes to the Trust’s founding documents.
I thought that we agreed in our call of 20 January 2016 that “functional neutrality” was sufficient, and there was no need for “structural neutrality”. These terms come from a document that was prepared by the CWG’s DT-IPR team http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-stewardship/attachments/20151214/fe2b4621/DT-IPRDraftofDecember142015-0001.pdf. I understood that CWG had also confirmed that decision in a meeting on 21 January 2016 http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-stewardship/2016-January/004629.html.
I am uncomfortable with Sidley’s apparent attempt to re-open that discussion in their “General comment to CWG” in their comments on the Proposed principal terms of IANA IPR https://www.nro.net/pipermail/iana-ipr/attachments/20160602/5752c65d/RedlineProposedPrincipalTermsofIANAIntellectualPropertyAgreementsSidley0531vsOriginal-0001.pdf, and I would like us to confirm that there is no need for changes to the way the IETF Trust is constituted.
2. How many IPR license agreements?
The original document said one license agreement in favour of ICANN, and had some complexities to deal with a possible future in which some but not all operational communities move to a different IANA services provider. The RIR legal team suggested three separate agreements for three parts of the IANA functions, which should make future changes easier.
My preference is for three agreements, and I did not hear opposition to that idea, but I am not sure whether a decision was made.
3. Should IPR licenses automatically terminate when IANA service providers are changed?
Assuming there are three license agreements, the RIR legal team has suggested that a license should immediately terminate when an operational community changes their IANA services provider, without the need for escalation or dispute resolution, because due process would already have been followed prior to changing IANA services provider.
I think that this would make sense, but we did not discuss it on the call.
4. How many community agreements?
The document says one or more: "An agreement or agreements between the IETF Trust and the names, numbers, and protocol communities (the “Operational Communities”) regarding the relationship between the Trust and each Operational Community and the relationship among the Operational Communities, including the Trust’s commitments, duties and obligations to each Community”.
I think that three agreements would make sense.
5. Who takes the lead in drafting?
I suggest that each community could take the lead in drafting a community agreement between their community and the IETF Trust, and the IETF Trust could take the lead in drafting all other agreements. Regardless of who takes the lead in drafting, each agreement will need to be approved by all affected parties.
Alan Barrett