[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]
Subject: Re: [chairs] Upcoming IPR policy revision Q&A calls
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
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]