We received two comments on the IANAPLAN discussion, and they look reasonable suggestions to me at least:
1. From Konstantinos Komaitis:
may I suggest one slight edit/amendment to consider in the following:
c. The IETF Trust will hold, maintain and renew the IANA IP in accordance with good IP management practices and shall seek new territorial registrations based on the IANA IP as instructed by the IANA IP Reps.
The language “good IP management practices” seems to be quite open-ended. Although every trademark owner should exercise, to the best of their abilities, good management of their IPR, there is no set framework of what this could mean — at least one that is generally acceptable or endorsed through law. So, this language could be subjectively interpreted to mean anything and it could, in theory at least, raise some potential issues of liability. I think it is important that the Trust does not do anything more than what the law prescribes in coordination with the operational communities.
If I may suggest the following as an alternative - or something along those lines:
c. The IETF Trust will hold, maintain and renew the IANA IPR in accordance with established legal requirements and shall seek new territorial registrations based on the IANA IPR as instructed by the IANA IP Reps and according to the applicable laws of each territory .
2. From John Levine:
For the most part I agree with the positive comments.
c. The IETF Trust will hold, maintain and renew the IANA IP in accordance with good IP management practices and shall seek new territorial registrations based on the IANA IP as instructed by the IANA IP Reps.
I wouldn't be comfortable with "as instructed by" because I've seen some impressively odd stuff from ICANN's lawyers. Also, there's the chronic problem of lawyers telling you to spend $1000 to avoid a $100 risk. (These are specifically not directed at the IETF's lawyer, who understands things just fine.)
I'd suggest "in consulation with" or similar language, to indicate that the trust will listen to them but not take orders from them.
As likely as not, it's not even legal to take orders from them, since that leads to perverse results if one of the IP reps tells the trust to do something that the trustees consider contrary to the purpose of the trust or not in the interest of the other beneficiaries.
followed up by me:
A good point, and I like your wording. In any case, the text that I posted is very high-level language that needs to be realised in more detailed contracts, but I think we are aware of your point.
Also, “IANA IP Reps” refers to the operational community representatives, so it isn’t necessarily lawyers. These are the communities telling the trust something, in relation to their expectations. But yes, as a general rule, leadership of any organisation needs to be aware of the 1000 vs. 100 issue your raised.
And John’s suggestion in general agreed by Stephen Farrell and Avri Doria.
Jari