InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[olddog967]

mickey. It is very simple what the standards committee does in regard to patents. They do not approve patents. All that is done is that at the beginning and during the meetings the chairman of the committee notifies the participants that if they believe their company, or any other participant company, has essential patents related to the subject under discussion they are required to declare those patents to ETSI. Again, ETSI does not approve patents as essential.



From ETSI's IPR Guide:


2.3.3 When and How?
A formal call for IPR disclosures shall be made by the Chairman at the beginning of each meeting.

The formal call for IPR disclosures needs to be made by the Chairman orally or in writing according to the example given below. Members need to be reminded that the forms for the notification of essential IPRs and licensing declaration are available on-line and attached in Annex 6 of the ETSI Rules of Procedure.

Example of a formal call for IPRs
The attention of the members of this Technical Body is drawn to the fact that ETSI Members shall use reasonable endeavours under Clause 4.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy, Annex 6 of the Rules of Procedure, to inform ETSI of Essential IPRs in a timely fashion. This section covers the obligation to notify its own IPRs but also other companies' IPRs.
The members take note that they are hereby invited:
• to investigate in their company whether their company does own IPRs which are, or are likely to become Essential in respect of the work of the Technical Body,
• to notify to the Chairman or to the ETSI Director-General all potential IPRs that their company may own, by means of the IPR Information Statement and t he Licensing Declaration forms that they can obtain from the ETSI Technical Officer or http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/document/Legal/IPRforms.doc.
Members are encouraged to make general IPR undertakings/declarations that they will make licenses available for all their IPRs under FRAND terms and conditions related to a specific standardization area and t hen, as soon as feasible, provide (or refine) detailed disclosures.

During the meeting a short reminder call for IPR disclosures should be made:
• on formal submission of a technical solution;
• on completion of the first stable draft of the standard;
• on working group approval of a draft standard;
• on TB approval of a draft standard.
E.g., this may consist of the following sentence "May I remind Members of their obligations to use reasonable endeavours to disclose any Essential IPR [related to this issue] in a timely fashion".
The Technical Body Chairmen should note and should make their attendees aware that disclosure of Essential or potentially Essential IPRs should be made at the earliest possible stage within the above list.

http://www.etsi.org/images/files/IPR/etsi-guide-on-ipr.pdf