[OpenID] OpenID IPR Policy Draft

Gabe Wachob gabe.wachob at amsoft.net
Sat Dec 9 05:44:14 UTC 2006


James-

Yes, you're correct. We can't control people who aren't covered by the
policy and they can often be the ones who (legitimately or not) have IPR
claims that can disrupt our work. 

We *can* however, take care of the cases where someone joins the group and
actively promotes a technology decision based not on technical merit, but
rather based on a desire to generate licensing revenue (or other market
influence) based on their patent claims. 

Unfortunately, there's risk no matter what we do - the attempt here is to
reduce the risk as much as is practical given the loose process and open
community focus we have. 

	-Gabe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James A. Donald [mailto:jamesd at echeque.com]
> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:31 PM
> To: Gabe Wachob
> Cc: 'Martin Atkins'; general at openid.net; specs at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] OpenID IPR Policy Draft
> 
> Gabe Wachob wrote:
>  > Actually, the language was changed from "post to a
>  > list", not "subscribe to a list" for this very reason.
> 
> It appears to me that your intent is, or should be, to
> protect against patent trolls, who are likely to
> retroactively patent the OpenID standard now that it is
> being widely adopted.
> 
> In the US, you can file a patent in which you *claim*
> you invented stuff one year prior to the patent
> application.
> 
> So the technology is first proposed and described on
> this list, on 2006 December 7, 2006.  It is incorporated
> into the standard and comes to be widely used around
> about, say, 2007 August.  On 2007 December 5, 2007, the
> patent troll has a friendly individual inventor file an
> patent application claiming to have invented the
> technology on 2007, december 6.
> 
> They keep the patent under water for a couple of years,
> preventing it from being published, until evil unpopular
> giant megacorp, say intel, has been using the technology
> for some time.  They then surface the patent.  Should
> intel fail to settle, they have inventor tell the jury
> he is being oppressed by evil giant megacorp.  Jury
> awards the patent troll a zillion dollars, and cabillion
> on top of that.
> 
> Unfortunately, your proposed measure is of limited
> effectiveness, since the our friend the highly jury
> sympathetic inventor is probably not signed up on this
> list, his expertise being primarily in being loved by
> juries, rather than computer technology.
> 
> Indeed, no measures whatsoever are likely to be very
> effective.  The patent office wants people to take out
> more patents, just as Ford wants people to buy more
> Fords.  The judiciary similarly wants more human
> activity to be subject to patents, just as they want
> more laws, and those laws of broader scope, hence the
> steady shrinkage of any portion of the constitution that
> begins "congress shall make no law ..."




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