Summary of 8 April 2002 Patent Policy Working Group Teleconference

Hello,

   Eighteen people attended the 8 April 2002 Patent Policy Working
   Group (PPWG) teleconference.

   The group again talked about disclosure requirements for
   non-participants in a Working Group with unpublished applications.
   There was some agreement that the wording in section 4.2 of the
   latest Working Draft [1] was originally written to deal with
   published applications and now might be ambiguous.

   A proposal sent to the group divided this issue into parts, and the
   group took straw polls on each part. The results of these polls
   were often close. What seemed at first to be decided was that W3C
   Members who are not participants in a given Working Group, must
   disclose the existence of unpublished applications that may have
   essential claims, only when they are based on Working Group
   information. No requirement to disclose more than the existence of
   these claims was agreed to. It was pointed out that under these
   circumstances disclosure gives that Member a negative image. Some
   PPWG participants were unhappy with the straw poll results, and the
   issue was moved to email.

   The rest of the meeting was devoted to obligations of W3C invited
   experts. The group agreed that the wording in section 4.3 of the
   last Working Draft [1] is fine. No one in the group expects invited
   experts to breach NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), attorney/client
   privilege, or other matters of duty.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20020226/#sec-Disclosure

Best wishes,
-- 
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@w3.org               tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:48:55 UTC