Add Criteria for Interested Parties

[BenWilson-Mozilla]

Concern has been expressed that the Forum lacks criteria for Interested Parties joining the Forum (other than requiring that they sign the IPR Agreement). Another concern is that an organization might bypass its IPR obligations by having an employee join the Forum as an Interested Party. Section 3.2 of the Bylaws should be amended to address these concerns. For example, section 3.2 of the Bylaws says that declaring affiliation is "optional". Section 3.2 also ought to require that both individuals and organizations be adequately vetted to ensure that the Interested Party membership category is not abused and/or used to circumvent the IPR Policy.
In addition to the foregoing, Interested Parties should have to meet additional criteria, as set by the Forum, to ensure that they provide a benefit to the Forum. They should have a substantive interest or expertise relevant to a Working Group’s charter.

[BenWilson-Mozilla]

Some thoughts from today's IPR subcommittee meeting:
1 - Declarations of Affiliation need to be mandatory, not optional. (Applicants for Interested Party who are not employed by any organization can still assert that they are not otherwise affiliated.)
2 - We need to document the due diligence that is currently performed on Interested Party applications before they are presented to the Forum.