Intellectual Property Policy for the Internet Safety Technical Task Force
This IP policy is intended to state the manner in which intellectual property presented or submitted to the Task Force will be handled and to clarify that no confidentiality obligations will be imposed on Task Force members.
No Confidentiality of Contributions
No contribution or presentation by any Task Force member or non-member contributor to the Task Force regarding any research, technology or service (hereinafter “Submission”) will be treated as confidential. Task Force members and the Technology Advisory Board, including its members and observers, shall have no duty to maintain the confidentiality of, and shall not execute or be subject to any confidentiality agreement for, such Submissions. Contributors should not present, and the Task Force will not accept, any information in a Submission that is confidential, proprietary or otherwise not for public dissemination. Contributors should submit only information that they are willing to have made public. Contributors must be prepared, in any follow-up discussions with the Task Force or the Technology Advisory Board to their initial Submission, to provide sufficient, non-confidential details and explanation about how their proposed technology or service works and upon what information it relies to allow the Task Force meaningfully to evaluate their Submission; otherwise the Task Force may not be able to continue to assess that Submission and include it in any reports.
Copyrighted Materials
Task Force members and non-member contributors will retain copyright in their Submissions to the Task Force. By providing your Submission to the Task Force, you are granting the Berkman Center and the Task Force a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and worldwide license to use your Submission for the sole purposes of carrying out the Task Force’s work and developing the Task Force’s reports, including, without limitation, the license rights to store, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission, and/or to incorporate it into a collective work. The Berkman Center and the Task Force shall have no obligation to publish, disseminate, incorporate in Task Force reports, or make any other use of any Submission.
Task Force members and non-member contributors understand that they may currently or in the future be developing internally information eligible for copyright, or receiving such information from other parties, that may be similar to the materials furnished in Submissions. Participation in this Task Force shall not in any way limit, restrict or preclude any Task Force member from pursuing any of its present or future copyright activities or interests or from entering into any copyright agreement or business transaction with any person.
Patents
Task Force members and non-member contributors will retain all pre-existing patent rights in their Submissions to the Task Force. No license, express or implied, of any patent owned by the contributors disclosed during this Submissions process is granted.
Task Force members and non-member contributors understand that they may currently or in the future be developing patentable information internally, or receiving patentable information from other parties, that may be similar to the patents disclosed during this process. Participation in this Task Force shall not in any way limit, restrict or preclude any Task Force member from pursuing any of its present or future patent activities or interests or from entering into any patent agreement or business transaction with any person.
Trade Secrets
Because Task Force members and the Technology Advisory Board, including its members and observers, will be under no obligation to maintain the confidentiality of Submissions, any material that a contributor considers to be a trade secret or otherwise confidential or proprietary should not be submitted to the Task Force or the Technology Advisory Board.
Intellectual Property Created by the Task Force
All intellectual property in any Task Force report, except that in Submissions by Task Force members contained in such reports, shall be owned by the Berkman Center. The Berkman Center will grant to each Task Force member an appropriate, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and worldwide license to store, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, and/or reformat the contents of any Task Force report for the purposes of facilitating or carrying out that member’s participation in the Task Force and activities related to the work of the Task Force.