What is Vendor A to do to protect itself from such an attack? One approach is Vendor A patenting the technology and cross-licensing at reasonable terms (like don't sue us and we won't sue you). What would you suggest instead?
I have nothing against obtaining patents to be used only defensively. If company A wants to do this, I presume it will start by give everyone a royalty-free license to use the original standard. We can also imagine a troll trap condition of the form "provided you don't participate in any other patent license covering the use of the standard which is offered to the general public and requires payment to any specified party." I would not object to conditions of that sort. IANAL so I don't know whether such conditions are considered lawful in any country. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf