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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Thank You! yaron_sheffer@intuit.com