[OpenID] Opened IPR Policy Draft

[Gavin Baumanis]

With various "commercial" companies having a "finger in the pie" I 'm
not at all sure how it would work / if it could work - but none the
less;
 
It sounds to me like we need the OpenID community to patent it's own
work so as to protect it from such outside patent claims? (whether they
be scrupulous or somehow genuine)
 
I am astutely aware that patent applications cost money - and that's
just the start of a possibly larger can of worms.
 
I follow Gabe's comments and realise by virtue of the nature of
"open-source" there are certain realities that just exist because of the
realm the community operates in - but ask (of those with better
knowledge) is there any scope for being able to do anything to address
James' concerns?
 
But perhaps before that question is even answered - a pre-question of
does it warrant any action, is the risk great enough?
 
 
Gavin Baumanis
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
 

>>> "Gabe Wachob" <gabe.wachob at amsoft.net> Saturday, December 09, 2006
16:44 >>>
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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