Many large companies have substantial patent portfolios and could avoid the
disclosure requirements of standards organizations if they could claim that
the participants in standards activities were not personally aware of
patents that may affect standards under development. IMHO if this were
allowed to happen then patent disclosure requirements become completely
ineffective.
In my opinion - any company participating in any standards activity should
either:
(i) Establish an internal process by which they monitor the standards
activities in which they participate and constantly review their patent
database for potential applicability (relatively easy given that everything
is electronic). If they find a matching patent or application related to an
in-process standards activity they should disclose it and state the
applicable licensing terms - if the standards activity has already completed
then they should waive their right to enforce the patent with reference to
the standard.
(ii) Make a blanket statement to the standards body that they were willing
to make licenses available royalty-free with the condition of reciprocity.
This avoids the need to track anything and preserves some ability to use
patents defensively.
Alan
On 6/15/11 4:46 PM, "Pete Resnick" <presnick@qualcomm.com> wrote:
> [Resending, Cc'ing chairs]
>
> Folks,
>
> I'm discussing this with people inside of Qualcomm, and I expect we'll
> get an official answer soon. But I did want to let you know at this
> point that as far as I can tell, none of the Qualcomm people who were
> involved in geopriv were aware of the existence this patent before it
> was publicly disclosed to the IETF (nor was I), and I believe the
> disclosure was made as soon as reasonably possible after it was thought
> that the patent might have had anything to do with RFC 4119 (which is
> what anyone with IPR is supposed to do). But again, I'm expecting a more
> official answer soon.
>
> pr
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