EXHIBIT A
Part IV – Content Identification1
As this article has been considering certain intellectual property ramifications relating to
the transmission of content, it is important to consider how content can be identified (e.g.,tracked for such purposes as collecting royalties) in the course of its transmission. A starting
point in an analysis of “content identification” with respect to wireless networking technology,
and in particular, the role of the IEEE standard 802.11, is an understanding of what is meant by“content.” This has important ramifications for intellectual property owners and informationsystems developers alike. Further, the use of higher level identifiers to authorize or coordinate
simple lower level functions such as “change status to activate or not” may assist in the provisionof digital information and other digital goods and services that may be subject to intellectual
property restrictions;and such identifiers may also be required for the management of more complex types of wirelessnetworking operations.
Despite the unfortunate tendency to view “content” as restricted to traditional copyrightworks, whether “born digital” or converted to digital form, a much wider variety of digital“content” is being implemented in a network environment. These new resources are likely to
involve the application of bodies of law other than copyright, such as patent, securities, banking,insurance, and communications. When organizing and deploying identifier systems at lower
802.11 levels, care should be taken to accommodate the interaction between 802.11 identifiersystems and new forms of “content.” Examples of such content might be one or more virtual
1

Contribution of P.A.Lyons, Committee 703--Spring Report (2003), American Bar Association.

machines implemented at various points in a 802.11 network, as well as the static and dynamic
relationships of such information management systems or other identifiable elements in theInternet or other networking environment. For example, much effort has been expended on thedevelopment of various computational facilities known as “virtual machines;” and these facilities
are being used to perform various operations for a wide variety of home and businessapplications. Where such virtual machines interact with information elements in an underlying
802.11 physical layer, manage access to external digital resources or perform other “statedoperations,” these computational facilities may themselves be viewed as “content.” Theinteraction of identifiers assigned to this new form of "content" at various levels of granularity,
as well as the identifiers used for more traditional copyright resources, and the interaction of any
such identifiers with lower level 802.11 information elements, is an important area for further
consideration within the IEEE 802.11 standards process.
Where content providers have developed digital asset management systems to identify
their digital goods and services, including specialized metadata and related rights management
technology, the tracking of such good and services may be important for owners of intellectual
property rights. Several concepts used in 802.11 may require reassessment to accommodate thisdevelopment. In particular, the medium access control (MAC) management capability is an
example of an 802.11 specification that may require adjustment. For example, as described in
the IEEE 802.11 Handbook by Bob O’Hara and Al Petrick (1999), at page 101, “dot11StationID
is a 48-bit attribute that is designed to allow an external manager to assign its own identifier to astation, for the sole purpose of managing the station.” Where an access point or “station” is anelement in a distributed information management system, either entity could come within themeaning of the 802.11 standard, or parts of it could be relegated to the status of an 802.11 higher

level protocol. From a content viewpoint, various software capabilities now typically treated as
higher level protocols in the IEEE 802.11 standard could also be viewed as part of the accesspoint or station in 802.11 terminology.
While the issue of digital asset management might be seen as unimportant to thedevelopers of wireless networks, whose focus may only be on communications connectivity, it
could be of real concern to owners of content who may have no other effective recourse tomonitor or verify compliance with terms and conditions placed on specific digital information
goods or services. The ability for a sufficiently endowed (i.e., with powerful computer resources)
unauthorized “outside party” to tap into an 802.11 network, effectively subverting normal
security provisions, is clearly within the realm of possibility. If such concerns become prevalent,
it may be desirable to assign some form of identifier external to the 802.11 specification to eachtransmitted frame, or specific elements of a frame, so that the identifier can be used to maintainrecords of authorized transactions or to track any unauthorized use or interception back to its
source (indeed, a "frame" may itself be viewed as a structured information resource in thiscontext, i.e., content with its own identifier and stated operations).
A question may also be raised with respect to other information elements and associatedelement identifiers set forth in 802.11 (Id. at 67). Any identifiers or other metadata associatedwith “access points,” “stations,” “MACs,” “frames,” or other 802.11 compliant elements, could
be made known to digital information management systems, or mutually trusted third parties,
and steps taken to coordinate such 802.11 identifiers with identifiers associated with “content,”
whether or not such identifiers are external to the 802.11 standard. This would appear to be auseful step toward encouraging the development of commerce based on wireless networking
technology where intellectual property, security, privacy or other restrictions apply.

At the present time, virtually all computer-based communication systems involve moving
bits from a source to one or more destinations (in the latter case this may occur by broadcast or
selective multi-cast as well as multiple one-to-one interactions) without regard to the meaning of
the bits being communicated. For purposes of content identification, it would be most useful andpractical to identify content at higher levels than either 802.3 or 802.11 now appears to allow.
For example, if content capable of being independently identified and processed was present in
the form of a digital object, i.e., structured data having an associated unique persistent identifier,then it would be possible to track content at various points in the communications pathway, oreven identify transaction records at such points. However, since actual content may be
encrypted in different networks or, more generally, in different information systems, explicit
arrangements would have to be made with the system operators to leave the identifier field in theclear (if, indeed, the 802.11 standard would allow this when encryption is used), or to trust
various intermediary systems along the way that see the content in the clear to extract theidentifiers for the purpose of content identification and processing.
At best, this is a very sensitive matter. Any such arrangements would have to be built
into agreements with the originators of the content and managed within the overall
communications environment. This may be accomplished through such means as associating
specific terms and conditions with individual digital objects in a form that is interpretable along
the way so that appropriate decisions can be made on the performance of permitted operations
such as further dissemination, reproduction or aggregation. An example of an
identification/resolution system that can assist here is the Handle System (see www.handle.net).
The assignment and use of identifiers associated with digital objects and other digital
resources is an important area of research. Some progress has been made in this context, butmuch remains to be done. Coordination of these efforts with the IEEE 802.11 standard
development process, and related efforts, is desirable. While 802.11 may be viewed by some as
too low-level a system to encumber with this kind of baggage, certain basic identification
elements might be desirable at that level to authenticate information systems and other digital
resources in order to facilitate verification and compliance with approved “stated operations” foreach digital object or other digital resource (whether also viewed as a “MIB,” "communication"or "frame") without violating any confidences or other restrictions placed on the material. It isalso important to provide a logical distributed connection between any such lower level
identifiers with intermediate management system identifiers, e.g., URI’s or other names assigned
to various elements in one or more virtual machines that may be connected with an 802.11
computational facility, and, ultimately, with identifiers and other metadata that may be
associated with information elements by intellectual property owners or their agents for purposes
not just of delivery of digital objects or other digital resources, but to enable a wide variety ofstated operations to be performed on such objects on a static or dynamic basis.
In summary, at a minimum, there is a need for visibility between higher level identifiers
and those assigned at lower levels such as MAC addresses, as well as the coordination of theseidentifiers and related metadata with network system elements such as IP addresses. This may
take the form of simple methods for tracking and accounting of identifiable digital information inorder to facilitate the enforcement of contractual restrictions on material subject to intellectual
property, or the detection of unauthorized external intrusions.