UIRe: clarification of blanket statement text

["George T. Willingmyre" <[e-mail]>]

Interesting that the term  "blanket" can in one case mean: 

1) an offer to RAND license any essential patents one may have in ANY of one's submissions to ANY standards activity .  That is the general case now with all of the generic patent assurances I looked at quickly now on the site at https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/ipr_list.cgi  In my opinion these still contain relevant information albeit information that falls short of meeting the current requirements in 3668.  Based on a quick look I saw none of the generic statements to meet the 3668 requirements for a blanket exemption Under 6.4.3, a participant can satisfy its disclosure obligations by making a "blanket" statementthat it is willing to license all of its potentialIPR covering an IETF specification ONLY if (a) the license will be royalty-free, AND (b) any other terms and conditions of the license are disclosed in an IPR disclosure statement.  CAN SOMEONE REPORT IF ANYONE HAS USED THE NEW SECTION 6.4.3?  

2) or in another case the term blanket might mean an offer to license any essential patents that a company "might have"  or  "may be seeking"  (but without revealing those patents or patent applications)  that might apply to a  PARTICULAR  standard (take for example the Reback letter  at 
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/redback-ipr-draft-shen-nhop-fastreroute-00.txt

I read the court decision to say that Symbol was following IEEE procedure. The original Symbol LOA to IEEE is not available on the web site for the 802.11 at http://standards.ieee.org/db/patents/pat802_11.html
  But it seems to me it to fall in to category 2. What is indicated on the web site  seems to show that Symbol agrees to license any IPR it might have on 802.11 on RAND terms (though not disclosing what patents it might have). We would have to see the original Symbol LOA to confirm this.  But such a statement without identifying the specific patent still  meets the current IEEE procedures as they are found at  http://standards.ieee.org/guides/opman/sect6.html#6.3  and in the current IEEE LOA at http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/loa.pdf

Such nuances are why I  become obsessed  with every single word in a patent policy or a procedure to implement a patent policy or in a LOA that purports to implement a patent policy procedure.  The nuance here is that IETF REQUIREs patent disclosures in the cases where the patent holder offers RAND terms.  In IEEE disclosing patent info is "Optional"  in the LoA

 [Note: Completion of the following section is optional. Nothing in this Letter of Assurance shall be interpreted as giving rise to a duty to conduct a patent search.]

See also Intellectual Property Rights Policies of selected   standards developers  http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/IPRpolicies.html  and  Criteria for the Evaluation of a patent policy for a Standards Setting Organization  http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/draftIPRcriteria.htm




George T. Willingmyre, P.E.
GTW Associates
1012 Parrs Ridge Drive
Spencerville, MD 20868
301 421 4138 facsimile 301 421 0977
www.gtwassociates.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Barr " <[e-mail]>
To: "'George T. Willingmyre'" <[e-mail]>; "'Powers Chuck-RXCP20'" <[e-mail]>; "'Contreras, Jorge'" <[e-mail]>; "'Harald Tveit Alvestrand'" <[e-mail]>; "'Scott W Brim'" <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 2:34 PM
Subject: RE: clarification of blanket statement text


> 
> George said
> 
> 
> List members may find interesting the case of Symbol V Proxim   where a
> court found that  a blanket offer to license IPR essential to a standard
> substituted for a duty to  disclose specific  IPR during the standards
> setting.  The court found that what is "right and wrong"  greatly depends
> upon the rules of the standards organization .  See more at
> http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/SYMBOLvPROXIM.htm
> 
> RB
> 
> Yes that case is interesting, so I asked Dave Ringle of IEEE about blanket
> statements, and his answer was that they only accept statements for a
> specific standard. 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ipr-wg mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg
> 
> 

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