RE: [nc-budget] Intellectual Property Agreement

["Peter de Blanc" <pdeblanc@usvi.net>]

Louis:

I believe there will be a few problems with your concept statement in
the last paragraph.

It my be well and good to set out what you (ICANN) wants, but I have the
feeling that unilaterally proposed contracts will not work in this
situation.

Paragraphs 2 and 3 would require that AFNIC enter into contracts, and
compensate those with whom it enters into such contracts, now and
forever, in order to transfer title to the IP to ICANN to be used on a
no-cost basis.

It is not AFNIC's responsibility to secure rights from employees or
consultants who developed IP independent from their paid duties and
outside of their job descriptions at AFNIC.

Perhaps negotiation is in order here. You are speaking (and attempting
to contract for) rights that AFNIC does not own.

Let's talk informally in Los Angeles.

Peter de Blanc

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nc-budget@dnso.org [mailto:owner-nc-budget@dnso.org] On
Behalf Of Louis Touton
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 7:33 PM
To: nc-budget@dnso.org; Philip Sheppard
Cc: Theresa Swinehart
Subject: [nc-budget] Intellectual Property Agreement


To the NC Budget Committee,

Following up on the committee's discussion of the intellectual property
rights that DNSO/ICANN should receive in the materials AFNIC has
generated in its performance of DNSO secretariat services, I have
prepared the attached Intellectual Property Agreement.  As you will
note, the agreement is simple, having a body that is only two pages
long.  Its principal features are:

   1.  DNSO/ICANN would obtain a complete transfer of all of AFNIC's
rights in the materials on the DNSO web site.  (Exhibit A to the
agreement is a listing of all URLs on the web site, but has been
shortened in the attached document for your convenience in reviewing
it.)  With respect to materials prepared by AFNIC personnel and
consultants, AFNIC would warrant that title to the intellectual property
is being conveyed to DNSO/ICANN.  With respect to other materials
(mainly public comments), AFNIC would simply transfer whatever rights it
has without a warranty of title.  This transfer should permit DNSO/ICANN
to continue to support its consensus-based policy-development activities
in the domain-name area.

   2.  DNSO/ICANN would obtain a perpetual, no-further-cost license to
all custom (i.e. not publicly available) software that AFNIC uses in
carrying out the DNSO secretariat functions.  This allows all future
secretariats the benefit of this software should they choose to use it.

   3.  DNSO/ICANN would enter the agreement only with AFNIC, not with
AFNIC's employees and consultants who have prepared the materials.  It
is AFNIC's responsibility to obtain the necessary rights from those
employees and consultants.

I believe that the above, simple agreement is a reasonable accommodation
of the various views of the committee, as well as being fair to AFNIC. 
It fittingly provides that AFNIC, upon being compensated for its
services, transfers to DNSO/ICANN the material that has been generated
during those services as well as the software to continue performing
those services.

Best regards,

Louis Touton