| Re: [jakarta.ee-spec.committee] On the timing of patent grants |
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+1 for deletion of the sentence although the sentence when combined with the sentence above gets to the heart of the “pay to play” argument. However I think the requirement against
the pay to play approach is captured in the Open Standards section. My objection to the wording is slightly different to the argument as written below. My objection is that the patent rights are granted by the trademark license which is only available
on commercial terms hence pay to play. I would not have disagreement with the status quo that patent rights are granted on passing the TCK if the TCK was available without charge. The problem with the status quo is that
the TCK is only available on negotiated commercial terms. My position is that paying a trademark license fee should be independent of granting the patent and copyright licenses for the creation of Compatible Implementations which should
be possible without cost. Then it is a commercial branding decision whether to license the Jakarta EE brand and it is up to the Eclipse Foundation and the Working Group to build that brand and therefore make it commercially attractive to license. I will leave it to the lawyers to cut that Gordian Knot. Steve From: jakarta.ee-spec.committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx <jakarta.ee-spec.committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Mike Milinkovich All, The very last sentence of the
spec requirements document currently reads: "The EFTLA will also be the mechanism by which Compatible Implementations are licensed all patent rights granted by the Participants." Many have pointed out that this requirements has a lot of implications. However, I can't really revise it in any particular direction at the moment because the lawyers have not yet agreed on whether we want to continue the status quo, or do something new.
The status quo is that both patent rights and the trademark license require passing the TCK. A more "modern" approach would be to tie only the trademark to the TCK and that patent rights would be granted to all implementers as soon as the spec is final. (Or
something similar.) Oracle in particular will have a near-veto on this particular topic because the trademark license for javax and the spec names is tied to their level of comfort with the new spec process. So if the Oracle people here have not yet discussed this with their
colleagues in Legal, please do so. I would like to publish this requirements document. My suggestion for the moment is that we simply delete that last sentence and go forward with the remainder of the document as is. A +1 on this suggestion would be appreciated.
Thanks. -- |