The large organizations do not seem to have any problem participating in OASIS where this is the rule. Admittedly there does seem to be an issue in W3C with one company but that seems to be due to internal politics.
The only obligation that arises out of the OASIS system is that if you have IPR that you know to cover implementation of a specification you have to declare it.
I know that there are companies with vast stockpiles of IPR that they think they will be unable to sort through. But as with the pearl in the junk room: if you don't know you have it you might was well throw it out anyway. If the lawyers don't know what the IPR portfolio contains and what it applies then how are you going to make money from it? The days when people looked at patents to find out if their invention might infringe and alert the owner are long gone, if the owner can't work out the applicability then why would anyone else?
If folk can't get their act together when a WG starts then why should we expect them to be able to do so at the end when we are trying to close the work?
From: Brian E Carpenter [mailto:brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thu 18/10/2007 5:30 PM
To: Hallam-Baker, Phillip
Cc: Simon Josefsson; Tim Polk; ietf@xxxxxxxx
Subject: A priori IPR choices [Re: Third Last Call: draft-housley-tls-authz-extns]
On 2007-10-19 05:47, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
...
> What I would suggest is that new working groups be required to specify the governing IPR rules in their charter, these would be either that all IPR must be offered according to an open grant on W3C terms or that the working group specifies at the outset that RAND terms are acceptable.
Violent disagreement. That would make all kinds of a priori processes
kick in for employees of patent-conscious companies, and generally
inhibit free discussion of initial ideas. Although it's messier to
confront patent issues later in the process, I believe that is
much better than constraining participation at the beginning.
Brian
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