Re: [chairs] Upcoming IPR policy revision Q&A calls

[James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>]

     Hello David.  Some replies inserted below.  My apologies in advance 
that I probably will only be able to respond to your message once, this week.

At 11:30 AM 2/22/2005, David Webber \(XML\) wrote:
>Jamie, There appear to be many open issues ahead of us that have not been 
>solved.  Most particularly those TC's with open source implementations 
>appear to be facing a * * * backlash: * * *

     I saw the letter you referenced this morning, as well, when it was 
published this morning.  We have responded to it.  I know some of the 
authors to be smart, fairly reasonable people -- I was somewhat surprised 
that they were inclined to throw a rock at us in the press first, and tell 
us later.  But that's up to them.  If they will talk with us, we will talk 
with them.  Like we do with anyone else.

     It shouldn't surprise anyone that patents are a difficult 
topic.  There are wide disagreements about them, across industries, 
national boundaries, legal systems and communities.  What I hope is that 
OASIS strives to be a place where anyone *can* work.  Whether they do or 
not is a personal choice.  All standards work is by definition voluntary.

     Any member can freely choose to implement, or vote for, only those 
proposed specs that have a specific kind of XYZ license ... or are 
translated into French ... or have a blue paper cover.  Or, if they prefer 
to  work outside of the system, they can choose to threaten to leave OASIS 
unless we promise to make all of our standards exclusively XYZ-licensed .. 
or French ... or blue.  Unlike a lot of other consortia, we don't place 
those decisions in the hands of a select star-chamber committee, nor make 
it a discretionary fiat by management.  We leave it to our members and each 
committee.

     I don't expect that issue to be the focus of our upcoming 
calls.[1]  The calls are intended as an exchange of information between 
OASIS staff and our volunteer TC leaders about how to effectively and 
fairly implement the policy revisions and revised policy.   We also will 
discuss the new license rights users get under the policy, and how that may 
affect adoption as a practical matter.

>Obviously we have two years yet before any of the TCs need to actually do 
>anything about selecting any IPR policy at all.

     That's partially true, as transition rules [2] require that a TC 
select a new mode within two years after the effective date.  But TCs also 
can choose to move faster than that.  I believe that many will -- for one 
thing,  they may want to take advantage of the automatic new rights that 
the policy creates for users.  Transition timing will be up to the members 
of each TC, by vote.

>Hopefully the USPTO will have abandoned their experiment with software 
>patent awarding by then.

      If you think this debate only rages in the US agency, you've missed a 
lot.  I'd strongly advise against making business plans around guessing 
exactly what the world's patent agencies are going to do.  Sometimes they 
surprise us;  sometimes they do dumb things;  and sometimes they disagree 
with each other.

>Given the landscape today however - it wouild appear less than prudent for 
>us Chairs to be stepping into this at this time.

     We can discuss in the scheduled phone calls exactly what TC chairs 
should be doing.  We will counsel TC leaders to focus on what their TC 
*members* wish to do rather than what *chairs* wish to do.

>I hope the telephone calls are able to at least shed some light on to the 
>Boards thinking here?  Perhaps the genius strategy * * *

     No, sorry, I have neither a crystal ball nor telepathic powers.  On 
the TC leader conference calls, we will be discussing implementation.  It 
is also a fine thing for OASIS members, or the public, to express opinions 
on the merits of a Board action -- any Board action.  It's healthy for an 
open organization.  The right place for that is to tell the Board, whose 
addresses appear at [3], and in the Board elections, which will come up 
again this Spring.  I strongly encourage people to do so.

     Regards JBC

~   James Bryce Clark
~   Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~   jamie.clark@oasis-open.org

[1]  http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/chairs/200502/msg00005.html
[2]  http://www.oasis-open.org/who/ipr/ipr_transition_policy.php
[3]  http://www.oasis-open.org/who/bod.php