Re: Encrypted Media proposal: Summary of the discussion so far

On 3/12/2012 1:51 PM, Glenn Adams wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Charles Pritchard <chuck@jumis.com 
> <mailto:chuck@jumis.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 3/12/2012 12:08 PM, David Dorwin wrote:
>
>     Confirmation that the development of CDM "key systems" is covered
>     by the W3C Patent Policy: should a company decide that they want
>     to create their own CDM, and they do so, they should not face face
>     IP litigation from W3C members. Each existing CDM vendor, who is
>     also a w3c member, would check their patent holdings for relevant
>     IP. A fictional example would be "Encryption of a network video
>     stream and management of a collection of keys for decoding of the
>     data".
>
>
> nothing in the proposal requires a specific CDM to be covered by W3C 
> PP; nor does the W3C PP or PD require this; so you are asking for 
> something that is out of scope; this is no different from someone 
> defining a canvas context that is IPR encumbered and publishing its 
> availability via canvas.getConext("anEncumberedCanvasContext");
>
> further, the W3C PP does not, in general, indemnify W3C members from 
> one another

There were patent disclosures for Canvas.

I've proposed a baseline implementation of CDM for the Encrypted Media 
proposal. It's possible that the baseline CDM may be relevant to 
existing patent claims by participating W3C members.

Henri brought up RF considerations, per Section 3.1.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-W3C-RF-license


>
>     My understanding is that companies should be able to create and
>     maintain CDM providers without fear of competitive patent disputes.
>
>
> the W3C PP is no guarantee against patent disputes, so this is a red 
> herring
>
> IANAL, but it seems that you may wish to consult one to formulate 
> questions that are reasonably in scope of the W3C PP and PD;
>

I am not a lawyer. I am not offering legal advice.

My understanding is that companies should be able to create and maintain 
the Encrypted Media Extensions API without fear of patent disputes from 
participating W3C members over their implementation, and that vendors 
and authors should be able to use those media APIs without encountering 
undisclosed claims from other participating W3C members.

Sections 8.1 and 8.2 lay out the definition of Essential Claims:

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#def-essential
8.1. Essential Claims. "Essential Claims" shall mean all claims in any 
patent or patent application in any jurisdiction in the world that would 
necessarily be infringed by implementation of the Recommendation.



-Charles