RFC 6579

The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type

📅 published March 2012, from ietf

okay bestie, this is RFC 6579 🎀 written by M. Yevstifeyev, dated March 2012. It's an Informational doc (so it's published for info, not as a Standards Track spec) with ISSN 2070-1721. The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates.

Abstract

this doc specs the disclosure link relation type 💖 It designates a list of IPR disclosures made about the material that the relation type is specified for.

Status of This Memo

ok so this is not an Internet Standards Track spec, it's just published for info 🧚

It's a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and represents the consensus of the IETF community 🫶 It got public review and was approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not every IESG-approved doc is a candidate for any level of Internet Standard, so check Section 2 of RFC 5741 for the details 💅

For the current status, any errata, and how to send feedback, look at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6579 🌸

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

This doc is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as in effect on the publication date. Please read these carefully, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this doc 🙈 Code Components pulled out of this doc must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

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 ✨

ok so RFC 5988 [RFC5988] is the one that defined a way to show relationships between resources on the Web 🦋 This doc is where the disclosure link relation type gets specified. It designates a list of IPR disclosures made about the material the relation type is specified for.

heads up: "patent disclosure" counts as a synonym for "IPR disclosure" for the purposes of disclosure link relation type semantics, because patent disclosures are a subset of IPR disclosures 💜

The W3C already requires the disclosure link relation type for links to patent disclosures in all its docs 👑 But it's been floating around for ages with no proper spec or registration. This doc fills that gap and encourages wider use of the disclosure relation type. It formally specs the existing practice and registers it in the registry created by RFC 5988 🎀

Also, the disclosure relation type points to a different resource than the copyright type does. copyright refers to the copyright statement, while disclosure is for a list of patent disclosures. For more on copyright, see RFC 5988 [RFC5988] 🌈

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] 🍓

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 about the material referenced by the context IRI. This also covers an empty list and a list with one entry. ✨

2.1. Examples

this section gives an example of how you could use the disclosure relation type 🧚

say the page http://example.org/ipr/meta-spec/ has a list of patent disclosures made about the spec at http://example.org/specs/meta-spec/spec.html. Then the spec would have this HTML fragment:

<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>

If you're using a Link header field instead, the HTTP response would include this header field:

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

(heads up: the real header field won't have the line break and spaces after the rel parameter 🙈)

3. Security Considerations 💀

ok this part is serious 😭 The disclosure relation type is truly believed not to raise any new security issues beyond the ones RFC 5988 already discusses for generic use of the Web linking mechanism. No new security drama here, but go read RFC 5988 for the full story 🔥

4. IANA Considerations 📋

IANA has registered the disclosure link relation type in the "Link Relations" registry, with a reference to this doc, using this 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 wasn't properly specified, and for kicking off this work 💖 The author also wants to thank (in alphabetical order) Bjoern Hoehrmann, John Klensin, Subramanian Moonesamy, Julian Reschke, Thomas Roessler, Peter Saint-Andre, Martin Thomson, and Juergen Quittek for their contributions to this doc 🌸

Author's Address 🎀

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

EMail: evnikita2@gmail.com
📦 where this page comes from