PatCom Report

1
PatCom Report
To the Standards Board
Don Wright - Chair
September 15, 2006 Piscataway, NJ
2
3Q06 Activity

• 27 LoA forms received posted
• 23 on the template
• 4 free-form letters
• 17 requests made for 52 LoAs

3
ANSI Patent Policy

• A series of minor changes to the ANSI Patent
  Policy, largely to provide clarifications,
  previously approved by the ANSI Patent Committee
  and the ANSI IPRPC is on the agenda of the ExSC
  for this fall.
• An issues list, providing a long term road map
  for future work of the patent group, is being
  addressed.
• The next meetings of the ANSI IPRPC and Patent
  Committees are Nov. 7th and 8th.

4
Ad Hoc Drafting Committee

• The core and extended drafting committees ad hoc
  of the Patent Committee which was re-appointed by
  the chair at the June PatCom meeting continued to
  work between the June and September meetings and
  delivered several versions of the documents.
• Core
• Don Wright, David Law, Claire Topp, Michael
  Lindsay
• Extended Drafting Committee
• Chuck Adams (IBM PatCom member), Jeff Fromm
  (HP), Susan Hoyler (Qualcomm), Gil Ohana (Cisco),
  Mike Sirtori (Intel), Amy Marasco (Microsoft),
  Geoff Thompson (IEEE SA Member)
• All comments were made and considered using a
  version of the 802.3 commenting tool and comment
  database tool.
• Version 12 of the documents was the input to this
  PatCom mtg.

5
PatCom Meeting

• The PatCom meeting was again well attended by
  guests from many high profile IT and TeleComm
  companies.
• The meeting ran from 830 AM until 820 PM with
  minimal breaks and a working lunch.
• Using the comment database tool, PatCom
  considered 143 comments on the version 12
  documents
• At the conclusion of the meeting, PatCom
  recommended the version 13 documents to the SASB.

6
Overview of These Changes

• The result of this work is a balance of the
  interests of all the involved parties.
• Some of the parties would have preferred we went
  further (e.g., define what reasonable means)
  while others would have preferred we did less.
• PatCom considered the current guidance from the
  DOJ and FTC as to per se anti-trust behavior.
• No patent policy would eliminate ALL risks to the
  IEEE we believe this policy appropriately
  manages the IEEEs risk.

7
Overview of the Changes - Bylaws

• The core elements of the existing policy are
  largely unchanged
• Assurance not specific disclosure
• RF or RAND with reasonable terms and conditions,
  non-assert commitment, or refusal to license are
  valid LOA responses
• Assurance is irrevocable once accepted
• Definitions of terms unique to the patent policy
  are now in the bylaws to make it and the other
  documents more readable.
• The bylaws now fully define the policy

8
Overview of the Changes - Bylaws

• The policy now addresses assignment and transfer
  of patents
• The policy now allows for the inclusion or
  attachment of not-to-exceed rates, a sample
  license or material licensing terms. Providing
  these is at the sole discretion of the patent
  holder.
• The policy now specifically allows the
  distribution of copies of accepted LOAs but still
  prohibits any discussion of same.

9
Overview of the Changes - Bylaws

• The policy now includes a duty on previous
  providers of an LOA for a specific standard that,
  if the participants or the signer of the form
  become personally aware of additional potential
  essential patents, they shall tell the IEEE.

10
Overview of the Changes - Bylaws

• The policy now makes it clear that participants
  in an IEEE standards project shall tell the IEEE
  about the holder of their or their employers
  patents that might be essential. They should
  tell the IEEE about the holders of patents held
  by others that might be essential.

11
Overview of the Changes Ops Man

• The process of making a call for patents is
  better defined.
• Given the irrevocability of LOAs, the Ops Man now
  describes how the IEEE will deal with multiple
  LOAs for a patent for a single standard.
• The Ops Man now describes how blanket and
  specific LOAs interact.

12
Overview of the Changes Ops Man

• The Ops Man now describes how LOAs apply to
  Amendments, Corrigenda, Editions and Revisions.
• The disclaimer text for standards has been
  updated.

13
Overview of the Changes LOA

• The LOA form is fully aligned with the Bylaws and
  Ops Man references them specifically.
• The LOA no longer creates policy.
• The LOA allows for the inclusion/attachment of
  not-to-exceed rates, sample license or material
  license terms.
• To be a blanket LOA, specific action must be
  taken by the submitter.

14
Resulting Documents

• The results were
• Bylaws Bylaws-Clause-6-V13.pdf
• Note The previously separate definitions
  document has been incorporated into the bylaws
  document.
• Ops Man Ops Manual - v13.pdf
• LOA LOA v13.pdf
• The comments and responses
• PatCom_12_Sep_06_V2p1.pdf
• All are available on the pp-dialog site
• grouper.ieee.org/groups/pp-dialog/drafting-committ
  ee

15
Moving Forward

• An SASB letter ballot on these documents will be
  issued.
• If and when approved, the bylaw changes will be
  forwarded to the BoG for its approval.
• In parallel, we will being the process of
  obtaining a business review letter from either
  the US DOJ or the US FTC.
• The BoG may decide to makes its approval
  contingent upon a supportive business review
  letter.

16
Thanks!

• This work has require a lot of hard work by many
  people.
• My heartfelt thanks especially to
• The members of the core and extended drafting
  committees
• All the members of PatCom
• All the stakeholders who have endured the
  day-long (or longer) PatCom meetings

17
tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis
-
Lothair I 795 855Grandson of Charlemagne King
of ItalyHoly Roman Emperor The times are
changing, and we change in them.