Re: Patent Policy issues...

On 13 Mar 2012, at 10:19 AM, Carr, Wayne wrote:

>> Note, however, that if a CG report moves to the Rec track, then disclosure
>> obligations kick in as part of the W3C Patent Policy.
> 
> The disclosure obligation if the CG spec moves into a WG is not for the same people as those who are in the CG.  Disclosure for a TR is an obligation only for W3C members.  CG members don't have to be W3C members.

That is correct.

> 
> Disclosure based only on actual personal knowledge isn't much of a burden.  You either personally know or you don't.  You don't have to do any search.  You just have to disclose if you yourself already know.

While what you say is correct, I have been told by others that the disclosure obligation is a burden for people to join a group. One piece of rationale is that if people have a disclosure obligation and fail to disclose (for whatever reason) it is problematic in court. This is an area where I relied on input from lawyers as I do not have direct experience with this.


>> One idea that was discussed was "If you don't sign the FSA you have a disclosure
>> obligation." There was resistance even to that proposal.
> 
> The optional FSA is late in the process when you'd like to work around these things early.   It also doesn't appear to have any disclosure requirement: " 7.2.2. No Disclosure Obligation. If I do not join the Corresponding Working Group, I have no patent disclosure obligations outside of those set forth in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. "  Since W3C Patent Policy Section 6 says it applies only to W3C members, it seems to say no obligation for non-W3C members. 

Right, but if you signed the FSA then you have made an RF licensing commitment (whether Member or not).

I just wanted to reiterate here that we did discuss the costs and benefits of a disclosure obligation and in the end chose not to include one because any legal obligation raises barriers to participation, and our emphasis was on participation. If you feel that the costs of not having a disclosure obligation are too high, please let me know and I will record it with the Community Council [1], established for this purpose. We'll review this and other topics that have come up over the course of this first year.  (Also, if you have a concrete proposal for a disclosure requirement, please let me know.)

Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/community/council/

> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ian Jacobs [mailto:ij@w3.org]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:47 AM
>> To: Arthur Barstow
>> Cc: Carr, Wayne; 'Scheppe, Kai-Dietrich'; public-w3process@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: Patent Policy issues...
>> 
>> 
>> On 13 Mar 2012, at 5:38 AM, Arthur Barstow wrote:
>> 
>>> On 3/13/12 6:23 AM, ext Carr, Wayne wrote:
>>>> But later is not the same people.  A CG creates a Community Spec where a
>> participant has personal knowledge of patents that contain essential claims.  A
>> WG adopts the Community Spec.  Someone gets sued for implementing.
>>>> 
>>>> The disclosure rules are lightweight.  They involve personal knowledge, not
>> any patent search.  They prevent the situation that someone knows technology
>> being added to a spec is encumbered but the group producing the spec does not.
>>>> 
>>>> For the reason Charles mentioned, there should be a disclosure requirement in
>> CGs ( based on personal knowledge like for W3C members and TRs).
>>> 
>>> Yeah I agree. It seems like a relatively large bug in the CG PP to not require
>> disclosures for CG specs.
>>> 
>>> IJ - why was this done?
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> A disclosure obligation is considered a burden. Because we were trying to
>> facilitate participation, we did our best to reduce burdens to participation.
>> 
>> One idea that was discussed was "If you don't sign the FSA you have a disclosure
>> obligation." There was resistance even to that proposal.
>> 
>> So for the time being we have no disclosure obligation for CG reports.
>> 
>> Note, however, that if a CG report moves to the Rec track, then disclosure
>> obligations kick in as part of the W3C Patent Policy.
>> 
>> Ian
>> 
>> --
>> Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
>> Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447
> 

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Tuesday, 13 March 2012 17:04:03 UTC