Suboptimal wording about "License Grants from Non-Participants"

[frivoal]

Currently the Process says in 6.2.6:

When a party who is not already obligated under the Patent Policy offers a change in class 3 or 4 (as described in § 6.2.3 Classes of Changes) to a technical report under this process the Team must request a recorded royalty-free patent commitment; for a change in class 4, the Team must secure such commitment.

I think this subtly misses the mark, because offering the change is not what is critical. Consider the two following situations:

• Based on discussions within the WG, the WG resolves to make a substantive change. A non-member who follows the minutes of the WG and sees this resolution helpfully sends a Pull Request to implement the change, saving the Editor some time.
  → It would seem that the non-member is offering the change, and that we need to ask them to commit to the patent policy, even though their involvement isn't adding anything IPR related.
• A WG member sends a Pull Request that makes a substantive change, which is not based on an idea they themselves had, but on something a non-member suggested and that they though was a good idea.
  → It would seem that the party "offering" the change is the member, so we can take it in without further IPR consideration, even though the substance of the change (and any IPR risk) comes from someone else.

I wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a rephrasing along the lines of:

When a proposal for a change in class 3 or 4 (as described in § 6.2.3 Classes of Changes) to a technical report under this process originates from or contains substantive contributions by a party not already obligated under the patent Policy, the Team must […]

[chaals]

I don't think the core issue here is really about wording, although I think @frivoal's suggested approach above makes sense.

It is important, to the extent that protection from "submarine patents" is important, that we set expectations around the Patent Policy and contributions and picking up good ideas. So it belongs in chair training, /Guide, and what we tell people who want to contribute.

The issue itself is real - it's straightforward in principle for a patent-holder to convince someone who is participating of a good idea, they take it to the group who adopt it, and there is no commitment from the submarine to actually provide an RF license.

The real level of risk here is more nuanced - in some areas the use of patents to protect against open competition is pretty normalised, in others it really isn't an issue. The Process makes us do specific things that seem tiresome when everything is going well, to protect "us" (in this specific case "us" == "everyone except the patent holder who is behaving badly") when things go wrong.

Working out how to decide on what level of effort we require to maintain that protection is probably a discussion that belongs to the membership, in the form of the AC, with input from the people who participate (or choose not to because they don't like doing the necessary paperwork).