Re: Continuous Development Process TPAC Slides

> On Sep 11, 2019, at 2:50, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
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> 
> 
>> 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?

I agree it is not terribly important, but I don't understand why you're having an issue with it. The WHATWG has the exact same thing, and Apple agreed to that (and I'd assume, was part of drafting that). The evergreen patent policy derives from the WHATWG's, and had that in it from the start, and you never had an issue with it. The proposed joint patent policy for REC track and evergreen keeps it too. Why is this a problem?

—Florian

Received on Wednesday, 11 September 2019 01:44:59 UTC