Re: [ebxml-dev] Anyone else rather perturbed by IBM's recentannouncement....

[Andrzej Jan Taramina <andrzej@chaeron.com>]

Marty:

> You apparently are not familiar with standards patent policies and
> practices. 

And IBM is apparently not familiar with the impact of making such an insulting and 
arrogant statement, when an interested party expresses a concern.  ;-)

> Licensing patents for "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" terms
> is quite common though not universal.  

And has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it might concern some users of 
CPP/CPA's that IBM may retain IP and licencing rights to all uses of such 
technology/standards.  Whether it is common practice or not, it still concerns me.

I can't help but notice that your reply in no way tried to alleviate the source of such 
concern, regardless of whether such concern is justified or not.

>  There was an unfortunate snafu earlier somewhere inside IBM.  The
> disclosure was to be made to ebXML (also RAND policy) in mid-2000 in
> conjunction with the startup of the CPP-CPA team but someone dropped the
> ball. 

OK...so IBM dropped the ball.  In which case I would suggest that an appropriate 
action might be to assign your patent rights to the OASIS ebXML standards group at 
no charge and with no strings attached.  By your own admission, the error was 
yours.  The other parties acted in good faith and as such should not be held 
accountable for IBM's error.  If you had made the disclosure when you should have, 
then it is possible that the CPP-CPA team would not have chosen to use your 
"precious" IP in the CPP/CPA body of work.



...Andrzej

Chaeron Corporation
http://www.chaeron.com