Re: PAC: IPR clause in CS 6

[Eduardo Gutentag <eduardo.gutentag@eng.sun.com>]

Jon Bosak wrote:
> 
> [tallen@sonic.net:]
> 
> | | I have appended below what appear to me to be the relevant
> | | passages of the OASIS IPR policy (modeled very closely on the IETF
> | | IPR policy and adopted by the OASIS board of directors last
> | | December).  Setting aside the question of what we may think of the
> | | adequacy of these provisions, it seems to me that this issue is
> | | already covered.  At the very least, it would appear that IPR is
> | | not a responsibility of the committee that creates a specification
> | | but rather of the OASIS board of directors.  I therefore suggest
> | | that we simply strike item 4 from our list of requirements.
> | |
> | | Anyone disagree with this interpretation?
> |
> | Sideways, yes.  The language drafted is faulty, as I argued long
> | ago now, in that it requires formal notice.  The IETF language
> | that OASIS counsel edited to arrive at this text requires the
> | relevant body to act on all information at its disposal, thus
> | avoiding the loophole created here that the Board can know of
> | something but close its eyes to it.  So this language should
> | be changed (back to the perfectly okay language the OASIS counsel
> | mucked up).
> 
> I said
> 
> | | Setting aside the question of what we may think of the adequacy
> | | of these provisions
> 
> I'm not happy with this language, either.  But I'm not happy about
> a lot of things that are beyond the present scope of this
> committee.  What I'm saying is that whatever problems there are
> with the OASIS IPR policy are not ours to solve (at least right
> now).  For better or worse, business decisions like this are the
> purview of the board.  So I think that we are perfectly justified
> in punting on this.
> 
> | In either case, the TC members presumably have the relevant
> | info, and need to convey it to the Board.  So we can't simply
> | strike the item, I think.

Not necessarily (as to "presumably have the relevant info"), since
the claim may come from left field, without any TC member having
any info on it. But note that, according to the IPR policy, 
    "The technical committee proposing
    the use of the technology with respect to which the
    proprietary rights are claimed may assist the OASIS
    Executive Director in this effort." [the effort being "attempt to obtain...
    a written assurance that...any party will be able to obtain the right to 
    implement, use and distribute... (sc. it)]
   I don't see why the item can't be striken.

> 
> I don't think that the members of the TC can be assumed to have
> the relevant info.  (This is a weakness of both the IETF and W3C
> IPR policies as I remember them, too).  In W3C this leads to the
> bizarre conclusion that official representatives should carefully
> maintain complete ignorance of their companies' intellectual
> property so that they can truthfully claim that they don't know of
> any conflicts.  I'd rather avoid this if we can.
> 
> | And is it the Board that "advances the specification" under
> | our new process?
> 
> No, but arguably it's the board that sets the IPR policy under
> which the process operates.
> 
> I can think of only one approach that might work in the context of
> the standards approval procedure: make a call for IPR claims part
> of the membership review process.  We're already requiring a
> three-month review period before voting begins; can we make a call
> for IPR claims part of that?  This would at least prevent any
> OASIS member from blindsiding the rest of us with unreasonable
> licensing requirements.
This would cover only last minute claims from OASIS members; it would
not cover the rest of the world. Or would it?

Eduardo

> 
> Jon

-- 
Eduardo Gutentag               |         e-mail: eduardo@eng.Sun.COM
XML Technology Center          |         Phone:  (650) 786-5498
Sun Microsystems Inc.          |         fax:    (650) 786-5727