Adherence to IPR Disclosure Policy by its OP Members
Hi Jeff,
<< ... the IPR Policy of SSO/SSOs which obligate member participants to disclose in timely fashion? That disclosure policy was read at the beginning of every 3GPP GERAN plenary that Qualcomm attended and they never missed one. ... Eric, please link or quote that which you claim Qualcomm was read by the relevant GPRS/EDGE SSO. >>
Do I look like your legal secretary? <g>
I hope you pay him/her more than you pay me! <ggg>
I access 3GPP (and 3GPP2) via FTP rather than HTTP so links are difficult. You can use an FTP client to reference all 3GPP documentation back to its inception in January 1999. Go to ftp.3GPP.com and drill down to the tsg_geran folder and it's TSG_Geran subfolder and then drill down further to the appropriate GERAN meeting folder and then to its reports subfolder. The plenary report itself is a Word file in a zip container.
As an example of what is read to participants in any and every 3GPP working group meeting (and same applies to 3GPP2), this is what was read by the chair to all attendees at the opening of 3GPP Technical Specification Group GERAN Meeting #5 in Chicago, IL, U.S.A., 28 May – 1 June 2001, immediately after roll call and agenda approval ...
IPRs obligations for 3GPP members were recalled to all Delegates. The attention of the members of this Working Group is drawn to the fact that 3GPP Individual Members have the obligation under the IPR Policies of their respective Organizational Partners to inform their respective Organizational Partners of Essential IPRs they become aware of.
The members take note that they are hereby invited:
• to investigate in their company whether their company does own IPRs which are, or are likely to become Essential in respect of the work of the Technical Specification Group.
• to notify the Director-General, or the Chairman of their respective Organizational Partners, of all potential IPRs that their company may own, by means of the IPR Statement and the Licensing declaration forms.
Ms. Anjali Jha [QUALCOMM EUROPE S.A.R.L. 3GPP MEMBER (ETSI) US] and Mr. David Williams QUALCOMM EUROPE S.A.R.L., 3GPP MEMBER (ETSI), FR] represented QUALCOMM at that meeting. They, of course, and other Qualcommers, and all other 3GPP representatives from all Organizational Partners of 3GPP are copied on the meeting minutes after the fact via the 3GPP e-mail exploder.
QUALCOMM participates in 3GPP by virtue of its membership in 3GPP Organizational Partner ETSI so they are governed by ETSI's IPR Policy which may be slightly different (not much) than that of other 3GPP's OP's. Some multinational companies (e.g. Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia) are represented in 3GPP by individuals from various multiple OP's (i.e US based ATIS formerly ANSI T1, as well as ETSI), so they are bound by the IPR policy of both ETSI and ATIS (e.g.) and Samsung (e.g.) is bound by IPR Policy of ATIS, ETSI and ARIB.
Just out of curiosity and while I was up on the 3GPP FTP server I decided to check the latest published GERAN report from Meeting #33, Seoul, South Korea, 12 - 16 February 2007 to see if declaration language had changed. It has slightly ...
The TSG GERAN Chairman presented the Draft Agenda, provided in TD GP 070001. The Agenda was approved. The Chairman made the following call for IPRs, and asked ETSI members to check the latest version of ETSI's IPR policy available on the web server:
“Delegates' attention is drawn to their obligations under the 3GPP Partner Organizations' IPR policies. Every Individual Member organization is obliged to declare to the Partner Organization or Organizations of which it is a member any IPR owned by the Individual Member or any other organization which is or is likely to become essential to the work of 3GPP.
The members take note that they are hereby invited:
• to investigate in their company whether their company does own IPRs which are, or are likely to become Essential in respect of the work of the Technical Specification Group.
• to notify the Director-General, or the Chairman of their respective Organizational Partners, of all potential IPRs that their company may own, by means of the IPR Statement and the Licensing declaration forms (e.g. see the ETSI IPR forms at webapp.etsi.org
I did notice that QUALCOMM is actively participating in GERAN and submitting contributions which is certainly why Nokia has stated that while they don't need a CDMA license from QUALCOMM they do need a GSM as well as a WCDMA license from QUALCOMM (regardless of the outcome of any of the 7 lawsuits QUALCOMM has filed against them in 6 countries).
Niels Peter Skov Andersen [QUALCOMM EUROPE S.A.R.L., 3GPP MEMBER (ETSI) DK], Sven Fischer [QUALCOMM EUROPE S.A..R.L., 3GPPM EMBER (ETSI) DE], and Michael Wengler [QUALCOMM EUROPE S.A.R.L., 3GPP MEMBER (ETSI) US] represented QUALCOMM at that last GERAN meeting.
GERAN of course stands for GSM EDGE Radio Access Network.
Now that I've finished that overdue and boring exercise, I think I'll go check out course conditions. The upper Chesapeake Bay area golf season is about to commence, albeit a little later than normal this year.
Best,
- Eric - |
