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

["Hal Lockhart" <hlockhar@bea.com>]

> Most particularly those TC's with open source implementations
> appear to be facing a gathering storm of protest / backlash:-
> 
>  
> http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:9543:eipghffcbln
> bhjiggalm
> 

These people are confused. Under the old rules, OASIS did not even require RAND. Now you can start a TC which at least requires the participants to commit to RF. Surely this is an improvement. Would they have protested if OASIS had not changed its policy at all?

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

Presumably those who think as you do will be anxious to convert their existing TCs to RF with Limited Terms at the earliest possible moment.

My prediction is that nobody is going to start a new TC except under one of the RF modes. (I have been wrong before.) It seems to me that if they do, they will just be painting a target on their backs.
  
> Hopefully the USPTO
> will have abandoned their experiment with software patent awarding
> by then.

It has been over 20 years, it is hardly an experiment. The problem is not hardware vs. software. (In the early 80's people were able to patent their software, by showing that the process could be perfomed purely by hardware and obtaining a patent for the process.) The problem is granting patents for things which are obvious and well within the state of the art.

Hal