Re: [PP-DIALOG] IEEE-SA Standards Board Patent Committee

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Hello Gil and Michael:

I am striving to better understand Michael’s proposed rewording compared to the present text in slide 3:

•Relative costs of different technical approaches that include relative costs of patent licensing terms may be discussed in standards development meetings.

•Technical considerations remain the primary focus

I agree with Gil that the wording was subject to extensive discussion in 2007 but it would be help me to better how Michael’s proposed rewording would reduce exposure to IEEE or to participants? On the matter of “Technical considerations” being primary, I have always wondered what other considerations may enter into possibilities that might be excluded? I am aware that this “constraint” is a part of many patent policies of SDOs ( such as ANSI and ISO/IEC/ITU ) but it has always been a question to me what possibilities does this constraint exclude?

Now I add a question about the current IEEE patent policy that has vexed me. According to clause 6.2 “An asserted potential Essential Patent Claim for which licensing assurance cannot be obtained (e.g., an LOA is not provided or the LOA indicates that licensing assurance is not being provided) shall be referred to the Patent Committee”. I have attended a couple of IEEE Patcom meetings and I don’t recall this has happened in the Patcom meetings I have attended. Of course I could be mistaken. There are a couple of LOAs on the IEEE database of LOAs where the check box for 1d has been checked. Some of these have become IEEE standards and I believe some have been ANS. I don’t understand how this can happen if the standard has not been referred to the patent committee? Maybe it is the term in the sentence above “asserted”? I hope the Patcom can help me understand,

George T. Willingmyre

President GTW Associates

From: Gil Ohana (gilohana)

Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 1:23 PM

To: PP-DIALOG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: [PP-DIALOG] IEEE-SA Standards Board Patent Committee - Ad Hoc DRAFT Call for Patents Slide Set - Review/Comment Period

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your comments. The language in question was the subject of extensive discussion in the 2007 time period. Predecessors of yours at Qualcomm participated in those discussions, which were extensive. If there is some new legal development in antitrust law that suggests to you that we need to re-open the discussion, then you should certainly make IEEE counsel aware of that development. If not, then if we go down the road you suggest, I predict, based on experience, we will be embarking on a long and contentious process. To pick one example, it may not surprise you to learn that I was not a fan of the sub-bullet regarding technical considerations being primary, because I believed then, and still believe, that participants in a working group ought to be able to take licensing cost considerations into account as they evaluate competing technical proposals. It is not the role of IEEE-SA to tell them how to rank cost considerations versus technical considerations. I did not win that fight way back in 2007. But should you wish to reopen the discussion of the antitrust slide, I am happy to try again.

Best regards,

Gil Ohana

From: Michael Atlass [mailto:matlass@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 10:08 AM
To: PP-DIALOG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [PP-DIALOG] IEEE-SA Standards Board Patent Committee - Ad Hoc DRAFT Call for Patents Slide Set - Review/Comment Period

Dear David Ringle and PP-DIALOG participants,

As discussion of any sort of pricing information discussion is fraught with antitrust concerns, when I re-read the slides, I thought better of the information points and subpoints allowing discussion of patent licensing costs as it was written in the draft we received (Slide #3).

In order to avoid potential for facilitating licensee price collusion (e.g. having a group of participants insist on a price for a royalty to let a particular technical approach or offering into a standard), I think that the legitimate discussion of the effect of potential patent costs on choices of technological approaches can be handled with less danger with some wording change.

Am proposing to reposition the sub-bullet and use the following language. (It’s in the attached slide).

• Don’t discuss specific license rates, terms, or conditions.

• However, relative general costs and benefits (merits) of different technical approaches including relative costs of patent licensing terms, relative difficulty of implementation and other similar relevant considerations may be discussed in standards development meetings

• Technical considerations must remain the primary focus

Best regards,

Michael.

From: Dave Ringle [mailto:d.ringle@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2017 1:03 PM
To: PP-DIALOG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PP-DIALOG] IEEE-SA Standards Board Patent Committee - Ad Hoc DRAFT Call for Patents Slide Set - Review/Comment Period

Dear All,

As you may be aware, there is a PatCom Ad Hoc that has taken on the review of the current Call for Patents slides. Please see 5.3 at http://standards.ieee.org/about/sasb/patcom/0617patmins.pdf for background.

The current Call for Patents slides are available online at https://development.standards.ieee.org/myproject/Public/mytools/mob/slideset.pdf

The Ad Hoc's draft slides are attached to this email.

The Ad Hoc is conducting a review/comment period. If you have any comments on the draft slides, please send an email to Dave Ringle (d.ringle@xxxxxxxx), PatCom Administrator.

The comment period will close on 03 November.

Regards,

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David L. Ringle
Director, IEEE-SA Governance
IEEE Standards Association
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854-4141 USA
TEL: +1 732 562 3806
FAX: +1 732 875 0524
EMAIL: d.ringle@xxxxxxxx
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