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Another Patent Holder Looks To Get In The Way Of A Standard
from the yet-again dept
We've noted over the years that, while it helps many markets to agree on a specific technology standard and then competing within the standard, the standards setting process has been decimated in the last decade or so due to everyone wanting to make sure that their patented technology gets into the standard. That's because there were a few cases where patent holders later came back and demanded lots of money from the successfully implemented standards (if you want examples, you can look at JPEGs, MP3s, RFID, WiFi and next generation DVDs). What this tends to do is actually slow down the process and harm everyone, but it's so damn lucrative to have your patented technologies as part of the standard, some companies would rather completely ruin a space than agree to let another company's patented technology get into the standard. Witness the situation with UWB, a wireless technology that would have been tremendously useful and well on its way to market dominance if not for years of standards battles over whose patented technology would get to be in the standard. Instead, after arguments and insults and wasted years, both sides decided to develop their own version, confusing the market place and helping no one. Then, there's the famous case of Rambus, who was accused of quietly paying attention at standards meetings and then modifying patent applications to make sure their patents covered the standards.
These days, it seems like everyone wants a chance to do something similar, because the system has made it just that lucrative. Some standards boards now require companies to declare any patents in the space, and that leads to cases like the following one, submitted by cmh. On the very last day of the 60 days given to declare patents, one company has shown up and declared that its provisional patents cover some technology in the standard and that they're unwilling to license the patents under the RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) rules set by the standards board. Really, it's part of a negotiating tactic about how much money this company is going to get out of this -- and that's all these patents have become. They're a calling card to get to the table to figure out how much they deserve out of a standard before it's even in the marketplace. It seems that patents have come a long way from the days when they were supposed to promote innovation.
Reader Comments
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Prior Art & Patents
A couple of points.
1. Surely standards bodies should do their own patent searches to ensure that any technology they are ratifying is clear of someone else's patents. The patent databases are well published these days so it's not a difficult task and given what is at stake you'd think it must be done.
2. In the case of companys getting provisional patents either during or slightly before these standards are published I would think these patents would not usually be awarded since there is clear evidence of 'prior art'. ie the standards body would have a claim to much of this work as well.
3. Some of your examples are a bit unfair because these technolgies were developed well before they were either adopted as a standard or became commercially sucessfull. One topical one at the moment is some of the WiFi stuff that was developed (and patented) by CSIRO years before it found commercial success. Clearly there must be some integrity in the patent system to ensure inventors of technology can be rewarded for their efforts.
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Can Tech Dirt focus on Technical issues? I'm getting tired of the excessive Patent rants...
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Re:
Kip, patents are also on technical issues.
You might be tired of them, but someone needs to listen to these stories...
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Standards + Patents = tech article
Here's an idea Kip: If you don't like the topics make your own successful tech blog where people can whine about what you choose to write about.
Or better yet, figure out why an article about standards patents IS a tech article.... it's pretty obvious on the face of it.
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Kip: go to /., then they can make a special -100000 category for posts by idiots like you who can't understand the point of a site.
CSIRO is an Aus govt. organisation: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. WiFi must be a reasonable source of income for the country, without the govt. making itself any more unpoular than it is already.
If I were a standards body, then I would specify in the rules ofr corporate participation that if any of the partcipatin gcompanies patents were included in the standards, they would have to renounce them after a certain period of months (say 3), and have merely the advantage of already having already had experience making a working, saleable, implementation of the patented concept.
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If interested, here are some more details and a li
An update on this committee and a competing format that is mostly similar. People seems to be resigned that there will be two formats to deal with.
A blog one of the journalists that takes a closer look a the CPF format and the copyrights involved.
This takes place within the EDA industry.
And finally a CEO/CFO level industry panel that is run by a troublemaker-- who lives up to the name...
-cmh
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Re: If interested, here are some more details and
Oops, the html links didn't come through.
Committee update:
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197801638
Two formats:
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198100699
Blog on CPF and copyrights:
http://www.eetimes.com/blog/news/archives/2007/03/power_format_ow.html
EDA troublemaker panel:
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197008441
http://www.deepchip.com/demo s/dvcon07.fhtml
-cmh
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