Re: Formal Objection to One vendor, One Veto

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 3:41 AM, David Singer<singer@apple.com> wrote:
> At 10:44  +1000 17/07/09, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>>
>> I think patent roll calls are usually done within a standards body to
>> get everyone who is involved in creating the standard to step forward
>> and register their demands on the patent pool at the given time. I
>> have indeed taken this concept out of that context and suggested using
>> it for a different but related purpose. Until we see such an approach
>> tested in court, we will probably not know if it can have the effect
>> that I am hoping for. But it's an idea and it would be nice if there
>> was a lawyer to comment on its potential.
>
> I think you have two activities mixed up.
>
> Standards bodies generally issue calls for patents so that they can
> document, informatively, who claims IPR on a standard.  This is done to
> assist implementors in finding who they might need to approach, and to get a
> commitment that the IPR is licensable (usually on reasonable and
> non-discriminatory terms).  If IPR emerges which cannot be licensed on the
> terms the standards body asks for (e.g. the owner doesn't want to license)
> then the standards body takes evasive action.
>
> Licensing pools are a convenience.  For standards that entangle a lot of
> IPR, it can be tedious to approach every IPR owner separately, and it is
> sometimes hard to reconcile the variations in terms they ask for.
>  Accounting and so on are also complicated if many must be paid. Pools are
> formed independently of the standards activity to provide 'one stop
> shopping', as a convenience.  However, I think it has been ruled that they
> cannot be the exclusive access to the IPR, that the licensors cannot be
> constrained to make their IPR only available through a pool.  Some IPR
> owners also, as a policy, do not join pools.
>
> Using the first part of this to raise the profile of the open-source codecs,
> and to get any owners of IPR that reads on these codecs, to declare that,
> might help.  It does, however, take work.

Excellent, thanks for clarifying this. I was hoping that such a thing
as a call for patents exists, but indeed thought the patent call and
the license pool were more tightly linked. That they are two different
things is even better, so people are used to patent calls.

It could thus be something that the W3C could undertake to address the
submarine patent risk for Ogg Theora.

Best Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Wednesday, 22 July 2009 07:03:20 UTC