GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications 1 Summary of issues and results from GSC-11 IPR WG Dan Bart, TIA Chair IPR WG SOURCE:Dan Bart, IPR

GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications 1

Summary of issues and results from GSC-11 IPR WG

Dan Bart, TIA

Chair IPR WG

SOURCE: Dan Bart, IPR WG Chair

TITLE: Report of IPR WG

AGENDA ITEM: 4 (GSC-11 Report of IPRWG)

CONTACT: [email protected]

GSC11(06) Closing_08_IPR WG Report


Meeting overview

• 37 attendees• 11 input documents (plus some revisions) presented and discussed• Subjects discussed:

– Changes or items being considered in PSO IPR Policies – ITU, ISO, and IEC Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Policies update– IPR Policies and Current Issues of Organizations External to GSC

PSOs/ITU – ANSI update on IPR issues in USA– Experience of practical implementation issues under existing policies,

Digital Rights Management, and IPR challenges in Standards making and IPR Policies

– Future of the IPR working group• “Open Standards” as related to IPR issues, i.e., referral from Joint

Meetings• Report to Closing Plenary, Conclusions, Resolutions and

Communique


Changes or items being considered in PSO/ITU IPR

Policies• Potential items to be discussed:

– Essential Copyrights– Trademarks– Pending patent applications vs. published pending patent

applications– Disclosure– Consideration of policies of External Organizations

• Scope of licensing obligation• Normative Referencing

– Governmental Requests

• Contributions from ITU, ETSI, TTC, ISACC, and oral inputs from many, more details in the following slides.


Changes or items being considered in PSO IPR Policies

• Main outcome:– The use of common forms for patent and licensing statements

by ITU-T and ITU-R was reported– Process attempting to harmonize patent policies of ITU-T, ISO

and IEC was presented Contribution No. 5– ISACC identified many of the issues that are causing SDOs to

review their policies– ITU and ETSI have evolving works in process, IEEE is

evolving its policy, TIA has made a major change in how it handles LoAs for normatively referenced documents

– Copyright ownership in standards as documents • Now seeing more express licensing or transfer of copyright in

connection with contributions

• Still a question of who “owns” the document (ANSI question)


ETSI update on IPR issues

• Issues discussed:– Contribution No. 6, ETSI gave an update on SOS

and the continuing “work in process” at ETSI

• Main outcome:– ETSI members including their legal counsels have

been meeting almost monthly to discuss changes to ETSI IPR policy, some items have been taken off the table other discussions continue but still a “work in process”


TTC update on IPR issues

• Issues discussed:– Contribution 8, TTC gave an update on its evolving IPR policy

to enhance compliance with policies of ITU• Main outcome:

– As a result of this review, the TTC board of directors ratified an amendment in March 2006, leading to full compliance with ITU-T policies, including the following:

• Re-organization among IPR policy related documents of TTC; some procedural matters having been written in the IPR policy has been moved to the IPR operation procedures.

• The context of the new sub-option 1bis introduced in the ITU-T’s IPR statement and licensing declaration form, including the meaning of “free” and “reciprocity” has been incorporated in both the IPR policy and the IPR operation procedures of TTC.

• Description in the IPR policy and the IPR operation procedures of TTC has been further clarified, such as introduction of “essential patents” with the detailed definition attached.


ISACC update on IPR issues

• Issues discussed:– Contribution 7, ISACC gave an update on what

should be considered during evolving IPR policy discussions

• Main outcome:– There was general agreement that ISACC’s

contribution identified many of the considerations that should be considered in a balanced IPR policy


ITU, ISO, and IEC Trademark, and Copyright Policies update

• Issues discussed:– Participants received an update on TSB Director’s

IPR Ad Hoc group results

• Main outcome: – Determination that patents, software copyrights and

marks are different forms of IP and should be treated as such

– Software Copyright Guidelines and Marks Guidelines are relatively stable and being used by Study Groups


IPR Policies and Current Issues of Organizations External to

GSC PSOs

• Updates from External Organizations:– OMA provided an oral update– American Bar Association activities were discussed– A European Patent Office (EPO) contribution from SOS III was

made a contribution to this meeting with the permission of the EPO. Contribution No. 9

• Main outcome:– OMA decision to harmonize its policy with those of PSOs and

ITU with regard to the scope of the licensing commitment is welcomed

– EPO has amassed a large data base of information to use in identification of prior art, and EPO is getting drafts and technical inputs from SDOs by becoming a member of the SDO


ANSI update on IPR issues in USA

• Issues discussed:– ANSI Contribution No. 10– New ANSI IPR Policy Committee – Overview of ANSI IPR Policies and updates– FTC/DOJ Hearings, still waiting– Litigation re Patents– Veeck Decision re Copyrighted standards

• Main outcome:– Understanding that ANSI has put copyright, patents and trade-related

issues of IPR into new ANSI Policy Committee which met early in 2006– No new developments on Veeck, which has not as of yet set much

precedence– Otherwise incremental changes at ANSI since GSC-10– IPR mentioned in US Standards Strategy (USSS) which was contributed

this GSC under the User Workshop


Experience of practical implementation issues under

existing policies• Potential Issues that could be discussed:

– Source Code Copyrights used in Standards– Evaluation licenses on Source Code submittals– Trademarks in Standards, both SDO-owned and commercial – IPR Declarations, IPR Databases– Technical means to protect copyrights of SDOs including Digital

Rights Management (DRM) implementations

• Main outcome:– Practical issues were covered in earlier Contributions of PSOs

related to evolving policy issues


Open Standards related to IPR issues

• Issues discussed:– Evaluated proposal to define the term “OPEN STANDARD”

based on the remand of the issue from the Joint Session– ITU Contribution No. 11– Confirmed the need to focus on OPEN with regard to the

PROCESS (IPR policy approach is one part of that process)– Should “elements” be collapsed to single definition?

• Main outcome:– Summary: Consensus decision to Reaffirm GSC-10 Resolution

• Can serve as a basis for a PSO to develop its own consistent definition or just adopt GSC-10 as its statement related to the issue

• GSC-10 in broad circulation and alternative articulation may be confusing

• Details on the next slide


Open Standards related to IPR issues

• The ETSI GA#47 has endorsed the GSC-10/04 Resolution and supported the elaboration of a definition for open standards, based on GSC-10/04 Resolution.

• The ETSI GA tasked therefore the ETSI delegation to GSC-11 to discuss the issue with the partners in GSC.

• The work done at GSC-10 was perceived by ETSI as providing only fundamental elements for a definition for open standards. Such definition was destined to be the next step in the work on a definition for open standards.

• However, there was considerable opposition by the participants of the IPR Resolution Drafting ad hoc group to the idea of “one definition” for all PSOs.

• While it was acknowledged that each PSO can use the GSC-10/04 Resolution as a basis for the creation of its own definition, it was not possible to achieve consensus for one definition for all PSOs at this time.

• After considerable discussion it was therefore agreed to readopt GSC-10/04.


Summary

• Fruitful discussions on a range of topics• IPR WG to meet during GSC-12. • Time Allocation: At least half a day, same as

GSC-11 and same meeting time template• Two Resolutions drafting groups formed: Open

Standards (Lead ETSI as PPSO) and IPR (Lead ITU as PPSO)

Other:– Input to HoDs and GSC-12 host for planning of next

meeting and allocation of time for IPR discussions


Proposed GSC-10 IPR Resolution

• GSC-10 IPR Resolution modified in following ways:– References to GSC-10 “open standards”

issues were deleted

• GSC-11 Proposed IPR Resolution – Reference to the GSC-11 “open standard”

resolution was added – See document in Proposed Resolutions folder


Thank you

Dan Bart, TIA

Documents

GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications 1 Summary of issues and results from GSC-11 IPR WG Dan Bart, TIA Chair IPR WG SOURCE:Dan Bart, IPR