I will preface my comments by saying that the IPP does not clearly state the objectives for the IPP. It would be very helpful to me to understand the use case involved, especially in the event of the UCAIug accepting proprietary IP and seemingly granting sub licenses to members.
My comments on the items that the IPP should cover are below. This is written somewhat generically and will need to be "legalized":
1. UCAIug should not accept disclosure of confidential information at any UCAIug event. Tainting anyone who attends an activity with confidential information and then by virtue of their membership creating an implied obligation to keep the information conidential will prevent many people from particpating in any UCAIug activity. No disclosure of confidential information shall be made at any UCAIug event without express prior written consent of the UCAIug governing board which should not generally be given. Any information disclosed during any UCAIug activity whether electronic, verbal/oral, visual, or written form shall be considered non-confidential without restriction on disclosure and that participation in any UCAIug is contingent upon agreeing to that.
2. The act of disclosing information whether electronic, verbal/oral, visual, or written during any UCAIug activity grants UCAIug the right to reproduce and publish such information in furtherance of the group's business purpose and grants the right for any receiver to use such information internally without payment of royalty. The act of disclosing any copyrighted materials during any UCAIug activity is considered an explicit acceptance of this. UCAIug will not destroy or obscure any copyright notices placed in any information disclosed but is not responsible for marking any materials with applicable copyright notices and no member or user of the information can relay on the UCAIug for identifying applicable copyrights that might apply to the information. NOTE: I am not trying to suggest that rights to copyrighted material should be granted but avoiding the situation where a presenter can claim a royalty from someone on the basis that they viewed a presentation either during an event or at their office after downloading it off the Sharepoint site cannot be accepted.
3. A similar patent policy should be put in place like IEEE standards activities. IEEE disclaims any liability for identifying any patents that might apply to its standards while simultaneously making it a requirement that anyone participating in the standard that holds a patent is required to disclose it. But IEEE does not accept any liability that anyone holding a patent is complying with that. They start every standards meeting with an IPP presentation and disclaimer.
4. UCAIug must disclaim any and all warranties of any kind regarding any information disclosed during any UCAIug event or otherwise published or provided by UCAIug either electronically, visually, verbal, or in writing.
5. Do we really want to accept proprietary IP without explicit declarations of rights? I would like to see a use case for this before I can fully comment on it. For instance, if we are going to accept such stuff must be an indemnification by whomever is providing it that they have the right to provide it to UCAIug under the terms specified in the first place.
6. Publication, presentation, or disclosure of information at any UCAIug event should not be deemed to place the information into the public domain. Likewise, simply attending an event must not create legal obligations, beyond those of complying with ordinary copyright or patent law. If what they want to disclose is so special that they cannot submit to the same restrictions that everyone who makes a presentation at any modern technical conference agrees with, then they shouldn't be disclosing it without some review, express agreement, and prior notice.
7. We should develop a simple slide presentation on IPP that must be presented to open any UCAIug event. How else can we expect people to comply?
Other comments on the opening paragraph text are in the attached file.