[cabfpub] Revised Draft of IPR Policy and Resolution

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/11/12 21:14, Jon Callas wrote:
>> Ben – I have never understood what is meant by “stand around
>> licensing”.  Can you define?
>
> Ben did a good job of that. We've also called it "stand around
> liability." The concern is having to give a license or be liable without
> making an affirmative act, merely by standing around, as Ben said.

"Stand-around liability" could also be referred to as "no-submarine 
licensing".

Here are three possible outcomes from "standing around" under the 
current IPR policy:

1) A guideline passes, and you have no IP which reads on it. Fine.

2) A guideline passes, and you have IP which reads on it, but you 
planned to license it RF for the good of the web anyway. Fine.

3) A guideline passes, and you have IP which reads on it, and you do not 
wish to license it RF, but you did because you didn't declare an 
exclusion. This may not be so good for you, but it is a good thing for 
the Forum as a whole, because it means you can't sue ("submarine") 
anyone else over a Guideline we've passed.


As I understand it, you, Entrust, want the _ability_ (not saying 
_desire_ - I know you continue to maintain you are not eager to sue, and 
I believe you) to be a member of the Forum, and see a Guideline come 
into being, get hashed out, voted on, and pass, and then sue Forum 
members over IP you have in that guideline with those members did not 
know about (because you didn't tell them, perhaps because you didn't know).

I don't want you to have that ability, no matter whether you noticed the 
IP was infringed before the Guideline passed or after. I'd say being 
part of the Forum means collaborating with us in keeping patent lawsuits 
far from our standards, by declaring infringed IP before we get to a 
vote. That takes effort, requires understanding of ones own IP portfolio 
(not an unreasonable request, I hope) and is undeniably a 
responsibility. But it comes with the territory. You must gain some 
advantages from being members, otherwise you wouldn't want to be. This 
is an obligation which comes with those advantages.

This seems to me to be the fundamental conflict we keep hitting. You 
want the privileges of CAB Forum membership without the obligation to 
disclose IP you own which reads on _all_ CAB Forum standards (you are 
happy to do it for some where you 'participate', but not all). I say 
that we are small enough and produce few enough standards that it's 
reasonable that membership requires disclosure for all standards.

Gerv