Having been through this fun and exciting patent policy stuff multiple
times including with the IEEE and the W3C, there are at least 5 principles
we need to adhere to:
1) Only those companies involved in the WG should be required to submit an
LOA. For example, If Lexmark never participates in WG "abc" then it
doesn't have to submit and LOA unless another company specifically asserts
that Lexmark has essential patents.
2) Only those companies involved in the WG who have (based on their own
determination or the determination of others) IP relevant to the work in
question should have to submit an LOA.
3) A patent search is NEVER required to be in compliance with the policy.
4) When the PWG representative in a company takes a position on whether the
member company has relevant IP, it is based on the representative's
personal knowledge and NOT on a patent search.
5) A blanket statement of assurance is acceptable. That means if a member
company says they will always license their essential patents on a RAND or
RF basis, that fulfills their obligation.
"Those who ignore history are doomed to re-live it."
**********************************************
Don Wright don at lexmark.com
Chair, IEEE SA Standards Board
Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
f.wright at ieee.org / f.wright at computer.org
Director, Alliances & Standards
Lexmark International
740 New Circle Rd
Lexington, Ky 40550
859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
**********************************************
---------------------- Forwarded by Don Wright/Lex/Lexmark on 04/01/2003
03:06 PM ---------------------------
thrasher at lexmark.com@pwg.org on 04/01/2003 12:14:05 PM
Sent by: owner-pwg at pwg.org
To: pwg at pwg.org
cc:
Subject: Re: PWG> Process document updated
Regarding Issue 1 in section 9.3 of the process document:
I think we need to look at rewordinig item 7 such that it removes the
requirement to fill out a LOA from
voting members (companies) that either don't hold, or are not aware of
patents that are relevent
to the Working Draft. This should be the assumed case if no LOA is
returned......
There are/will be cases in which voting members (companies) of the PWG do
not participate in a PWG
chartered effort such that knowledge of relevant IP (or the subject matter
of the effort itself) will not be
known without an exhaustive patent search for every PWG effort.
Given the current wording in the process document, a PWG voting member can
essentially block
the progress of a standard from Working Draft to Candidate Standard simply
by NOT submitting
a LOA.
Dennis Carney <dcarney at us.ibm.com>@pwg.org on 03/27/2003 11:23:06 AM
Sent by: owner-pwg at pwg.org
To: pwg at pwg.org
cc:
Subject: PWG> Process document updated
I have updated the PWG Process document with the changes discussed at the
last telecon.
The main two changes are that the concept of "Maturity Version" has been
replaced with "Maturity Level", and that a document now gets an IEEE ISTO
standard number when it becomes a candidate standard.
There is one issue explicitly called out, having to do with whether voting
can proceed on a document before all LOAs are in place.
I believe that this document is going to be discussed at the (planned to
take place over the phone) PWG plenary next Wednesday, April 2.
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/general/process/pwg-process20-20030327.docftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/general/process/pwg-process20-20030327.pdfftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/general/process/pwg-process20-20030327-rev.docftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/general/process/pwg-process20-20030327-rev.pdf
Dennis Carney
IBM Printing Systems