[HSSG] IEEE Patent Policy and Ad Hoc Conference Calls

[John DAmbrosia <jdambrosia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

A new IEEE-SA patent policy will be going into effect on April 30, 2007.  Per IEEE-SA Standards Board operations Manual Subclause 6.3.2:

 

“The chair or the chair’s delegate of an IEEE standards-developing working group or the chair of an IEEE standards Sponsor shall be responsible for informing the members of the working group that if any individual believes that Patent Claims might be Essential Patent Claims, that fact should be made known to the entire working group and duly recorded in the minutes of the working group meeting. This request shall occur at every standards-developing meeting.

 

The chair or the chair's delegate shall ask any patent holder or patent applicant of a Patent Claim that might be or become an Essential Patent Claim to complete and submit a Letter of Assurance in accordance with Clause 6 of the IEEE-SA Standards Board Bylaws. Information about the draft standard will be made available upon request.”

 

At the IEEE 802 March Plenary, a Patent Policy tutorial (http://www.ieee802.org/802_tutorials/march07/patent_policy_tutorial_0307.pdf) was given.

  

It was explained that Subclause 6.3.2 means that a call for patents must be made at every standards-development meeting, which includes Working Group, Task Force, Task Group, Study Group, Ad Hocs, and conference calls.

 

For future Ad Hoc meetings and conference calls, a link to the patent policy slides will be provided in the meeting announcement.  At the beginning of the meeting or call, I (or my designee) will ask whether there is anybody participating that has not read the policy. If someone says they have not, then I (or my designee) will either (a) read the policy aloud, or (b) send the policy or URL electronically and pause until all participants have read the policy.  

 

We will begin using this procedure immediately.  As noted the new policy and respective slide set does not go into effect until April 30, 2007.  Until that time the current patent policy slide set will be used.  For your reference, please see http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/pat-slideset.ppt

 

John D’Ambrosia

Chair, IEEE 802.3 Higher Speed Study Group