[OpenISO] Patents.

[Kenneth]

All:

Lets see if this works . .  .

I personally think that requiring a covenant not to enforce patents
may discourage some organizations from the OpenISO standards process.
Patents, if handled in a transparent manner, can be delt with.

For exmaple, take the MPEG-2 standard.  Technically, MPEG-2 is sound
and can be implemented from the standard documents.  The technical
contributors to that standard, however, have all sorts of patents that
cover it.  BUT, the technical contributors have agreed to
non-discriminatory, reasonable patent licenses to anybody for the
patents that cover the standard.**  If you want to make and sell an
MPEG-2 decoder, you pay $2 that is distribued amongst those that
contribute to the MPEG-2 "patent pool," e.g., contributed patents that
cover the standard.  Even submarine patent owners often join the pool
so they can draw from the licensing fees without having to go around
suing everybody (a very expensive proposition).

So, even though there are patents and fees, the legal issues may be
clear and predictable.

** The above description of the MPEG-2 standard and the licensing pool
may not be 100% accurate, but I think it gets my point accross.  There
are other standards and other licensing pools that handle patents
similarly.

I propose a ranking system for the intellectual property (IP) issues
like the ranking system for the technical issues:

1 - intellectual property issues unclear and possibly dangerous
[Example: the OOXML system may earn a 1 because full implementation of
the standard could potentially infringe MS patents and it is unclear
what patents MS covenents not to enforce.]
[2, 3, 4]
5 - intellectual property issues very clear.  [Example: a standard
whose technical contributors have expressly agreed not to enforce
patents; a patent pool is established; known, predictable licensing
fees or free.]

A standard with a high technical ranking but a low IP ranking would
encourage the patent owners to contribute to the pool and offer free
licenses or non-discrimatory licenses at a reasonable royalty to
anyone - all for the purpose of improving the IP ranking of the
standard.

You could even establish "defensive patent pools" where a company says
that they will use their patents offensively against anyone who
enforces a patent agains the standard.  [Similar to how Google says
they will enforce their patents agains any company that enforces their
patents against Linux (although Linux is not a standard, of course).]
Such an arrangement would improve the IP ranking.

Regards,
Ken



[quote]
Here's a first proposal for a rating system: [snip]

* strongly discouraged  --  pseudo-standards with vendor lock-in
                            properties or negative impact on people
                            with disabilities

* discouraged           --  specifications which don't quite meet
                            the minimum requirements of an
                            OpenISO.org standard, but where adopting
                            them anyway is not likely to result in
                            significant harm

* acceptable            --  specifications which meet the minimum
                            requirements of an OpenISO.org standard,
                            but where there is nevertheless an
                            objective reason to avoid recommending
                            them.

* recommended           --  a good standard, fully worthy of
                            endorsement

* strongly recommended  --  an excellent standard without any known
                            technical shortcomings

Eventually, when the rating system and the underlying criteria have
stabilized, OpenISO.org could start issuing "OpenISO.org certified
standard" certifications, which would be available for standards
that are rated at least "acceptable".


[quote]
Legal safety would be an important crterion.
I think the current system is a concern because there is no surety
around the legal use of the 'standards'
[/quote]

Unfortunately, we can't eliminate legal risk, but the ranking system
can help reduce it.