The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                    M. Yevstifeyev
Request for Comments: 6579                                    March 2012
Category: Informational
ISSN: 2070-1721


                  The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type

Abstract

   This document specifies the 'disclosure' link relation type.  It
   designates a list of IPR disclosures made with respect to the
   material for which such a relation type is specified.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6579.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
     1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2. 'disclosure' Link Relation Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.1. Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   5. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   Appendix A. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5

1.  Introduction

   RFC 5988 [RFC5988] defined a way of indicating relationships between
   resources on the Web.  This document specifies the 'disclosure' link
   relation type.  It designates a list of IPR disclosures made with
   respect to the material for which such a relation type is specified.
   Please note that the term "patent disclosure" should be considered
   synonymous with "IPR disclosure" for the purposes of 'disclosure'
   link relation type semantics, as patent disclosures are a subset of
   IPR disclosures.

   The W3C already mandates the use of the 'disclosure' link relation
   type for links to patent disclosures in all its documents.  However,
   it has long been used with no proper specification and registration.
   This document is to fill this gap and encourage wider use of the
   'disclosure' relation type.  It formally specifies the existing
   practice of use of the link relation type and registers it in the
   registry created by RFC 5988.

   Please note that the 'disclosure' relation type designates a
   different resource than the 'copyright' type does; the latter refers
   to the copyright statement while the former is used to reference a
   list of patent disclosures.  Please see RFC 5988 [RFC5988] for more
   information on the 'copyright' relation type.

1.1.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

2.  'disclosure' Link Relation Type

   Whenever the 'disclosure' relation type is used, the resource at the
   target Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI) [RFC5988] MUST
   represent a list of patent disclosures made with respect to the
   material referenced by context IRI.  This also covers the case of an
   empty list and a list containing one entry.

2.1.  Examples

   This section provides an example of possible use of the 'disclosure'
   relation type.

   If the page <http://example.org/ipr/meta-spec/> contains a list of
   patent disclosures made with respect to the specification found at
   <http://example.org/specs/meta-spec/spec.html>, the latter would have
   the following fragment of HTML source code:

   <html>
     ...
     Please visit
     <a rel="disclosure" href="http://example.org/ipr/meta-spec/">
     the IPR page</a> for the list of patent disclosures made with
     respect to this specification.
     ...
   </html>

   In the case of Link header field, the HTTP response would contain the
   following header field:

      Link: <http://example.org/ipr/meta-spec/>; rel="disclosure";
            title="Patent Disclosures List"

   (Please note that the actual header field will not contain the line
   break and spaces after the 'rel' parameter.)

3.  Security Considerations

   The 'disclosure' relation type is truly believed not to raise any new
   security issues that are not discussed in RFC 5988 for generic use of
   the Web linking mechanism.

4.  IANA Considerations

   IANA has registered the 'disclosure' link relation type in the "Link
   Relations" registry, with a reference to this document, using the
   following template:

   o  Relation name: disclosure

   o  Description: Refers to a list of patent disclosures made with
      respect to material for which 'disclosure' relation is specified.

   o Reference: RFC 6579

5.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC5988]  Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010.

Appendix A.  Acknowledgments

   Thanks to Bjoern Hoehrmann for noticing that the 'disclosure'
   relation is not properly specified and, correspondingly, initiating
   this work.  The author would also like to acknowledge the
   contributions of (in alphabetical order) Bjoern Hoehrmann, John
   Klensin, Subramanian Moonesamy, Julian Reschke, Thomas Roessler,
   Peter Saint-Andre, Martin Thomson, and Juergen Quittek to this
   document.

Author's Address

   Mykyta Yevstifeyev
   8 Kuzovkov St., Apt. 25
   Kotovsk
   Ukraine

   EMail: evnikita2@gmail.com