[CWG-Stewardship] FW: [client com] IPR Memo

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi Greg,

In case it isn't clear below, I really don't know the answer to what
I'm asking and I'm not trying to advance an argument by pretending to
ask a question.  I'm not a lawyer, as I've noted, but I've heard an
interesting argument (hinted at by Milton more than once) and I'd like
to understand your view of it.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 07:45:52PM -0400, Greg Shatan wrote:

> assets, but transferring ownership of the IANA trademarks/domain names
> would be a transformational change -- it would no longer be internal to the
> IETF.  In essence, *if the IETF Trust becomes the owner of the IANA
> trademarks, the IETF Trust essentially becomes IANA*.

[…]

> As such, the source and origin of the services offered by IANA will be the
> IETF Trust.

At the foundation of an IANA registry[1] is an RFC that either was
subject to IETF consensus, or for which the IETF now has change
control, or for which the IAB (now a committee of the IETF) is the
source of authority.  This includes the very idea of the DNS root zone
and the very idea of the root of an IP allocation tree.  Some of the
RFCs in question predate the IETF, in some cases by many years.  But
I've never seen an argument that they're not now subject to IETF
change control.  This is different to the individual entries in any
given registry.

If that is true, then is it or is it not the case that the IETF is the
"source and origin of the services" offered by IANA, and IANA is
merely executing the function created by the IETF in the first place?
If so, does that mean that the IETF Trust turns out to be an
appropriate place for these marks and the associated iana.org domain
name?  If not, why not?

To be clear, I don't think the argument I sketch above depends on the
idea that the IETF maintains policy authority over all these areas.
It clearly does not, and I'm confident in believing that it does not
want such policy authority.  I'm rather asking about the "source and
origin of the services" claim, which I understand to be critical to
the point you're making. 

Thanks and best regards,

A (asking as usual only for myself)

[1] all IANA registries?  I'm unable to come up with a clear
counter-example at the moment, but I won't swear there are none; the
IDN practices registry might be a counter-example, but I'm not sure.
It's in any case an awkward case.  RFC 1591 is another difficult case;
it's never been updated, and it was in my opinion an IANA statement of
policy outside IETF control, so the int. registry might be another
case.

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com