At 10:44 +1000 17/07/09, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
I think patent roll calls are usually done within a standards body to
get everyone who is involved in creating the standard to step forward
and register their demands on the patent pool at the given time. I
have indeed taken this concept out of that context and suggested using
it for a different but related purpose. Until we see such an approach
tested in court, we will probably not know if it can have the effect
that I am hoping for. But it's an idea and it would be nice if there
was a lawyer to comment on its potential.
I think you have two activities mixed up.
Standards bodies generally issue calls for patents so that they can
document, informatively, who claims IPR on a standard. This is done
to assist implementors in finding who they might need to approach,
and to get a commitment that the IPR is licensable (usually on
reasonable and non-discriminatory terms). If IPR emerges which
cannot be licensed on the terms the standards body asks for (e.g. the
owner doesn't want to license) then the standards body takes evasive
action.
Licensing pools are a convenience. For standards that entangle a lot
of IPR, it can be tedious to approach every IPR owner separately, and
it is sometimes hard to reconcile the variations in terms they ask
for. Accounting and so on are also complicated if many must be paid.
Pools are formed independently of the standards activity to provide
'one stop shopping', as a convenience. However, I think it has been
ruled that they cannot be the exclusive access to the IPR, that the
licensors cannot be constrained to make their IPR only available
through a pool. Some IPR owners also, as a policy, do not join pools.
Using the first part of this to raise the profile of the open-source
codecs, and to get any owners of IPR that reads on these codecs, to
declare that, might help. It does, however, take work.
Hope this helps.
--
David Singer
Multimedia Standards, Apple Inc.
