Dear Gopal,

thanks for your follow-up. The IANA IPR transfer process does not have any bearing on the use of proprietary software.

However, there are other discussions at the IETF itself, which discuss Intellectual Property issues in the wider context of RFCs. 

https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ipr/about/

The RFC work is essentially finished, but the mailing list which supports the RFC work on https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ipr-wg/ still has occasional postings and discussions. None of this is directly relevant to ICANN or At-Large.

Kindest regards,

Olivier

On 13/01/2026 02:15, gopal wrote:

+1 Olivier.

Does this have bearing on use of proprietary software?

Quick Notes:

In the early 2000s there were companies which relied on installing proprietary software on a user's computer or ISP network to redirect domain-name queries to non-ICANN-approved TLDs. 

Such efforts are a threat to universal resolvability and the stability of the global DNS. The core ICANN Internet  Infrastructure Runs on FOSS. 

However, ICANN develops and retains intellectual property rights for some of its own platforms and software tools, such as the Domain Metrica Platform, which are accessed under specific terms of use.

Third-party registry operators and registrars that contract with ICANN use a mixture of FOSS and proprietary systems.

Gopal T V

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From: Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Sent: 13 January 2026 02:49
To: cpwg@icann.org <cpwg@icann.org>
Subject: [CPWG] IANA Intellectual Property Management Corporation topic

 

Dear Colleagues,

on the last CPWG call, the question arose whether the IANA IPMC topic should be transferred to the Organisational, Finance and Budget Working Group (OFB-WG), now that the ALAC has sent its input to the IETF commenting process.

The matter of whether the topic should be now transferred to the OFBWG - Operational Finance and Budget WG, is indeed topical. 

I would suggest that until we have an official public announcement that the IANA Intellectual Property Registration (IPR) has been successfully transferred to the IETF IPMC and the IETF IPMC running in a stable state, that is, has had its first post-transfer meeting and has announced officially that the transfer is complete, we keep an eye over this in the CPWG. Once this is done, it could be transferred over to the OFBWG as it is an IANA topic and that group is better suited to push for bylaw updates for the IETF IPMC than the Policy working group.

Comments welcome.

Kindest regards,

Olivier

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