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Patent Pools

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: David Brownell <david-b@p...>, jim@a...,xml-dev@l...
• Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 15:27:28 -0500

To get a few more smart dendrites to fire in the aging noodle, 
I did a bit of reading on the concepts of patent pools.

"A patent pool is an agreement between two or more patent owners to license
one 
or more of their patents to one another or third parties.  A patent pool
allows 
interested parties to gather all the necessary tools to practice a certain
technology 
in one place, e.g, "one-stop shopping," rather than obtaining licenses from
each 
patent owner individually."  USPTO

There can be advantages to RAND based on this for the 
W3C:  mainly, to use the patent law to the W3C's advantage 
in its goal of "bringing the web to its full" yada.  
A patent pool gives the W3C a certain amount of teeth. 
There is also the outstanding potential that members 
could form their own patent pools as has been done 
by the motion pictures group.  Then the game gets harder. 
The LinuxWorld article is from Bruce Perens and as I recall, 
he is part of the policy debating crowd, so this provides 
his viewpoint.

Here are some bits to read.  If nothing else, read the 
USPTO article (in PDF of course).  For those of you 
going to the Orlando conference, this should prepare 
you better than simply packing torches and pitchforks.

... you still need the "implements of destruction" but 
this could help you to tell villagers from the monster in 
the windmill.

len

The USPTO position (used biotech as the example).  This is must reading.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/01-06.htm
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/patentpool.pdf

Article on why patent pools (description of kinds of terms, etc.)
http://www.emediapro.net/EM1998/standard9.html

The DVD Licensing Site
http://www.dvd6cla.com/

LinuxWorld:  an argument from Bruce Perens for Linux to have a patent pool
as a means 
of defense
http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1998-11/lw-11-thesource.html

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