On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 01:04:32PM -0700, Ted Hardie wrote:
I believe it is fairer to recognize that in your example proposal B
is known to have been patented where A is not. There is always the
chance that someone will turn out to have secured rights which they
later claim read on A. In that case it may actually be better to
choose B, knowing that the license offered works for the development
and deployment community than to choose A. In other words, a
"defensive" patent declaration by someone whose license works for
the appropriate community may actually add security. It doesn't
completely remove the risk that someone will turn up with other
rights, but it really can help.
This doesn't follow. Just because a company has patents that read on
B doesn't guarantee some other company *also* has patents that read on
B. So you can't say with certainty choosing path B is better than
path A just because a company has already declared they have patents
that read on B.
The US Patent Office may have simply issued two patents on the
identical technology (I believe the cannonical example is the case
where three patents were issued covering the same compression
algorithm). Or there may have been other aspects of B that happened
to be patented by another company, and if it is currently owned by a
Patent Troll who has no interest in participating in the IETF process,
there is no way for the working group to know about the Patent Troll's
patents.
Aren't patents fun? :-)
- Ted
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