The IPR process can only deal with participants in the Work group. We can't do much about the overall problem with the US patent process.
We came close to having an issue with openID 2.0, where one of the participants held relevant patents. It is better to get the people contributing to the spec to agree upfront that they will provide royalty free licences to any applicable patents they hold. We are dealing with companies like MS, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and others who hold large portfolios. I don't think our IPR process is unreasonable. People just need to agree upfront. John B. On 2010-07-16, at 10:59 AM, Paul E. Jones wrote: > John, > > I hate to be the only one who disagrees with this assertion, but honestly > most lawsuits I have had to deal with are initiated by those not engaged in > some standardization effort and/or who purchased patents from companies who > might have previously been engaged in the standardization effort. > > I’d gladly accept a patent statement much like those submitted to the IETF > for various RFCs. At least you know where the companies stand. It’s those > lurking in the dark somewhere that are a problem. Worse, they’ll sometimes > wait until the historical record is gone, making it even more challenging to > prove that whatever they claim in a patent wasn’t already disclosed. And, > with the US patent process the way it is, you can introduce something today > and I can file a patent today. I could claim I invented it a year ago and I > might even be awarded the patent. Unless you could prove that you had > disclosed it publicly at least a year prior, then the patent would be valid. > > The patent system is a bit of a mess, to say the least. > > So, while I admire the effort to make OpenID free and I’m supportive of that > effort, I’d personally prefer a simple IPR process where companies declare > their IPR, etc. It works for the IETF and other organizations, so why not > follow the same model? > > Paul > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Bradley > Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 9:58 PM > To: Eric Sachs > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Connect WG? > > I know people get frustrated because they want to just do stuff. > > However the IPR process and agreements protect everyone from someone coming > along later and asserting patents after people have built products. > > Everyone who wants to work on Connect should start the process of joining the > WG now and not wait. > > John B. > > On 2010-07-12, at 9:30 PM, Eric Sachs wrote: > > > >> People who work for large companies may take some time to get approva > > To put it mildly :-( > > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:37 PM, John Bradley <[email protected]> wrote: > The charter was approved. > > The next step is for people to get there IPR agreements in and start the work. > > I don't know if David has his in yet. > > People who work for large companies may take some time to get approval. > > Regards > John B. > > On 2010-07-12, at 4:39 PM, Dan Brickley wrote: > > > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Eric Sachs <[email protected]> wrote: > >> A whole bunch of Yahoo and Google folks are on vacation in July and August, > >> and during the time they are working they are probably going to focus on > >> finalizing OAuth 2.0. So my bet is we won't have a lot of activity on the > >> mailing list until late August. However David Recordon said he might have > >> time in a few weeks to start pulling together some material. > > > > Backing up a bit, ... was there a management decision in the > > Foundation to proceed with a Connect WG? Or that mailing list activity > > would be towards putting together a refined proposal? How do things > > work here? > > > > Dan > > _______________________________________________ > > specs mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs > > >
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