Re: Continuous Development Process TPAC Slides

> On Sep 5, 2019, at 21:05 , Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net> wrote:
> 
>> I still don’t understand why getting a Contribution License from WG members fixes anything in the W3C context, where WG members grant a full-spec. license.
> 
> There can be fairly long stretches of time between the kinds of drafts that trigger patent exclusions/commitments. Contribution licenses give some coverage in the meanwhile. I don't think it's that critical, but it's a nice to have improvement, both on its own merits, and to bring us to parity with the WHATWG. 

I think the chances that someone will bring a suit because the Rec hasn’t yet issued and hence they haven’t yet granted a license is zero. The judge would laugh.

I think this might cover the case where someone proposed something, it was integrated, marked- at-risk, and removed before Rec.  Someone did an implementation (as requested) during CR. They have no formal license. 

But I suspect that any license grant we’ll get is for the IPR that became essential as a result of integrating the contribution into the spec. that existed at the time of the contribution. That’s the bulk of it; if later changes to the spec. made more IPR from that owner essential, it’s not covered, but that’s minor.

I still think it’s somewhat of a strange situation. “You were willing to grant a license to the IPR supporting your contribution if and only if it issued as a Rec., and it didn’t, and you’re now suing someone who made a good-faith implementation to prove the spec. while it was in development?"

Is that it?

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Tuesday, 10 September 2019 17:50:37 UTC