Re: [codec] IPR Disclosure: France Telecom's Statement about IPR related to RFC 6716

[Ron <[e-mail]>]

Hi Stephan,

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:15:53AM +0000, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> On 1.19.2013 20:37 , "Ron" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 02:50:52AM -0500, Monty Montgomery wrote:
> >> On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 2:38 AM, Hoene <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >> > Oops,
> >> >
> >> > it covers the SILK part of Opus and it valid for another three year
> >>:-(
> >> > I think it is time to start working on Opus V2.0.
> >> 
> >> It's hardly time to panic :-P  We'll review it like the others that
> >> have come in.
> >
> > Did we ever hear back from Huawei about their uncertainty over their
> > rushed last-minute declaration of the patent they bought?  I thought
> > they'd promised to follow up on that ...
> 
> Yes, we did hear back.  https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1741/
> 
> For context, we asked for additional info regarding the granted patent, as
> their initial declaration was against a published application which, at
> the time of the declaration, was already an issued patent.
> 
> Let me also reiterate that, IMO, the declaration was both voluntary
> (which, by definition, would mean it was timely), as well as timely even
> if it were not made voluntarily.  It was voluntary because Huawei
> established that none of their IETF participants knew about that patent
> (as it was a recent acquisition, and the inventor is not an IETF
> participant).  It was IMO timely, because they made their declaration
> within a few months after they acquired the patent.

Yes, I remember there being a bit of a song and dance act with some
confusion over whether they'd even declared the right document, and
you prompting them for the correct one, which they then did add in the
link you post.  And I did appreciate their openness with sharing that
they suspected they might have purchased something which was relevant
here, given the lateness of the hour when that occurred. However that
isn't the interesting part that I was querying here ...

In their initial statement and explanation, they also disclosed:

 "So far Huawei thinks that the IPR **MAY** cover the I-D,
  a disclosure was therefore submitted."

(their emphasis, not mine)  And went on to say in their reply to you:

 Referring back to your previous question, that's also the reason why
 we even do not have time to evaluate the issued patent and counterpart
 applications.

 However, in order to facilitate your work I have pushed my colleagues
 to accelarate the pace, hope an investigation result can be available
 within two weeks.


But unless I missed an email somewhere along the line, that was the
last we ever heard of that.

Since the general consensus so far appears to be that their IPR does
*not* cover the RFC at all, I'm curious if that is also the conclusion
that they came to after they found time to properly investigate, and
if so, were they planning to report that back to us as promised?

They certainly haven't pressed their claim for royalties with anyone
currently shipping this, and I've not heard anybody say they will be
expecting them to, but still, it would be nice of them to allay the
fears of Christian Hoene and reassure him that he can still use Opus
on a RF basis in any of his projects.

There's no good reason to leave people fearing needlessly. :)

Timely disclosures are indeed very important to working groups, but
timely disclosures of the irrelevance of a previous disclosure seems
to be something that perhaps some IETF participants could improve on
to the benefit of all concerned.


> >It is mildly amusing to see the people who objected to this group forming,
> >who claimed there was no expertise here to produce a competitive codec,
> >and who persist in objecting to its RF status, seem to have such amazing
> >trouble not only understanding this codec, but also their _own_ patents
> >and what they actually apply to ...
> >
> >I'd certainly be embarrassed to be consistently that wrong about
> >everything.
> >
> > 'Oops' indeed.
> >  Ron