Summary of 28 January 2002 Patent Policy Working Group Teleconference

Hello,

Fifteen people attended the 28 January 2002 Patent Policy Working Group
(PPWG) teleconference. They briefly planned to compile issues lists for
their upcoming face-to-face meeting and then continued to review the
Royalty-Free (RF) internal draft.

Attention was given to the idea of defensive suspension, the case when
an RF license would be suspended if a licensor were sued for infringing
a patent used to implement a W3C Recommendation. The point was raised
that this should apply only to essential patents required to implement
that specification.

Two people offered language for a license grant.

Then the group discussed possible requirements that Working Group
participants and non-participating Members must disclose patents they
hold that relate to requirements to implement a W3C Recommendation. The
question of unpublished patent applications was raised.

The group discussed whether or not W3C's patent policy should say
explicitly that a Member's legal department needs to be or does not
need to be consulted in order to make disclosures, and whether patent
searches are needed. There was some consensus that there are great
differences between Members who would treat this requirement
differently.

Best wishes,
-- 
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@w3.org               tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

Received on Tuesday, 12 February 2002 00:40:47 UTC