Re: Proposal for issue 327

David Fallside wrote:

>The PAG section (http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice#sec-PAG) of the
>Current Practice Policy identifies the conditions under which a PAG is set
>up.
>  
>
I read that before I responded, and as I read it again, I see nothing 
inconsistent with what I suggested.

A PAG is generally launched when the WG has not been able to comply with 
the terms of the charter with respect to IPR, i.e. is not able to get a 
complete statement from members in good standing or acceptable RF 
committment on patents that have been discovered.  

 From this description, I do not understand why the WG would close the 
LC issue or advance the specification without getting the issue resolved 
first, involving a PAG where necessary, unless it thought the issue was 
not a real one.  I did not read that advancing the spec to PR was 
required to call a PAG, and it would seem to me to be prudent to address 
the issue before advancing to PR.  In fact, it says: "During the time 
that the PAG is operating, the Working Group may continue its technical 
work within the bounds of its charter," which to me says that the team 
contact might convene a PAG as early as it is obvious that there is a 
problem the WG cannot resolve either by changing the specification or by 
soliciting RF license offers, rather than waiting until the last moment 
(not completely applicable in this case since the charter was recently 
modified).   But I could have missed something obvious here.

Ray Whitmer
rayw@netscape.com

Received on Monday, 7 October 2002 19:02:59 UTC