RE: The OWF Approach to patents for light-weight standards

Eduardo Gutentag suggested:

> I would propose a different set of requirements for the IPR policy to be used by these groups (whatever they are called):
>
> - it should be such that both patent owners and patent users feel comfortable with it (or, to put it in more realistic

>  terms, it should be such that both owners and users feel equally uncomfortable with it)

 

I've got a drawer-full of proposals that fit the latter category. :-) 


> - it should be such that it would provide a protective umbrella not only to those who participate in the group, 

> and not only to W3C members, but to all [excluding protection from third party so-called trolls, of course, 

> whose actions cannot be protected against, under any circumstances]

 

I personally agree, to the extent that the protective umbrella covers implementations of the Specification, not the entire participating company or unrelated software. There are lots of ideas about defensive termination yet to be explored by our OWF Legal Drafting Committee.


> - it should be such that participating patent owners cannot game the system by submarining their inventions

 

A patent owner can only do that once before it is kicked out of the community. I honestly don't know of any company that has actually faced litigation for infringement of a submarine invention relating to an otherwise royalty-free software specification issued by a cooperative and open standards body. Is what you fear a common occurrence in your world? Or are "Rambus" and "Lemelson" such dirty words now that everybody avoids becoming one? We haven't met a Rambus yet in Apache, but perhaps we're just lucky?

.
> - it should be such that participating patent users cannot force patent owners to license RF against their will

 

Agreed. Contributions should always be voluntary.


> - it should be such that users do not have to wait until the very end of the process to know whether there is

> protection for their use of the group's output

 

I don't know what you mean by "very end of the process." In the current DRAFT OWF model, the ongoing specification process that is covered by the limited patent grant in the OWF CLA can be punctuated by efforts to get patent owners to sign an OWFa for the complete version of a specification as of a given date. If anyone is worried about specific patents, they can seek a voluntary signature on the OWFa from the patent owner. Get it over with as soon as possible. That works already for "Necessary Claims" even with the current OWFa 0.9, although we're exploring alternative versions of that agreement.


> - it should be such that a patent owner cannot walk away from it at the last minute, thus rendering useless a

> sustained collective effort engaged in good faith by most.

 

Unfortunately, that's what everyone means by "voluntary signature on the OWFa". But patent owners who do that are likely not to be invited to the table next time. Is that sufficient to deter bad faith behavior for light-weight standards? Probably not entirely. The old battles between good and evil will probably continue.

> Of course the PSIG will find the right IPR policy that ensures all this in just a couple of days ;-) 

> One can only dream.



OWF invites masochists to join us also. Why let PSIG have all the fun? Fortunately I'm in both places. 

 

> I do envision the possibility of having two patent policies in parallel for a while, the existing one 

> and an experimental one for these incubator/fast-forward groups.



I like that plan!

 

/Larry

 

 

From: public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org [mailto:public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Eduardo Gutentag
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 9:21 AM
To: Arnaud Le Hors
Cc: public-vision-newstd@w3.org
Subject: Re: The OWF Approach to patents for light-weight standards

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