The following email message was received on May 20, 1998:


From: Hal Jespersen <hal.jespersen@Sun.COM>
Subject: Re: Last Call: Internet Calendaring and Scheduling to Proposed Standard


This is to advise the IETF that Sun Microsystems, Inc. (SUN) is
willing to grant licenses under our patents which may be applicable to
the calendaring and scheduling (C&S) standards being developed in the
IETF.

In this regard, if implementations of the C&S specifications from
the CALSCH committee infringe patents issued to SUN, SUN agrees upon
written request to grant a non-exclusive license under such patents on
a nondiscriminatory basis and on reasonable terms and conditions.

SUN further advises the IETF that SUN and IBM Corporation are joint
owners of a patent application pending that specifically relates to
the Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification
(iCalendar). The full text of the application and allowed claims may
be viewed at URL http://playground.sun.com/pub/cal-patent/.

Because of the recent discovery of additional prior art (the Chronos
specification--ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu/pub/ietf/), SUN has filed
a Petition to Withdraw the application from issue in order to permit
the Patent Office to consider this newly discovered art. As a result,
the allowed claims will be reexamined in light of this art. Regardless
of the outcome of this reconsideration, SUN is willing to grant a
no-cost license to any person who would infringe this patent solely by
implementing the iCalendar specification, assuming that the iCalendar
specification is adopted as an IETF Standards-track RFC.

Written requests for licenses may be sent to:

        Erwin J. Basinski, Esq.
        Sun Microsystems, Inc.
        901 San Antonio Road
        Mail Stop PAL1-521
        Palo Alto, CA 94303