Homomorphic Encryption Standards: Governance Proposal Yaron Sheffer, Intuit Aug. 2019

Summary The proposal is about: Organizational structure Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) rules This is a starting point, leading to an open community discussion and a decision

Background Community feedback requesting more transparency IPR as a known inhibitor of standards Discussion at the Toronto meeting Lightweight proposal targeting an all-volunteer organization (credit: Sam Thomas) Some aspects broadly based on IETF process

Organizational Structure Steering Committee Working Group ... Organizational Structure Steering Committee headed by 2 chairs SC chairs self-nominated, approved annually by community on mailing list SC forms and dissolves Working Groups, appoints one or more chairs to each WG Working Groups correspond to individual documents WG decisions based on rough consensus, ratified on mailing list and then by SC Mailing lists are open, Steering Committee actions must be published

IPR Process Proposal closely follows RFC 8179 A Note Well document describes participants’ commitments on IPR disclosure Confirmed by participants when registering to a meeting or joining a mailing list Obligation to publicly disclose patents that belong to your organization in areas that you participate in Strong preference to technologies that are FRAND-licensed over otherwise licensed IPR Such licenses may be non-free, may also give special treatment to FOSS

Proposed Next Steps Open discussion until Sep. 21, followed by 2 weeks to reach community decision Decision only if we have a reasonable level of participation, otherwise it will be deferred Document is public, open for comments/suggestions For anything more substantive, a mailing list is available

Thank You! yaron_sheffer@intuit.com