[CMC Alert] CMC SPECIAL TELECON - Standardization of Patented
Technologies
Juan.Miro at esa.int
Juan.Miro at esa.int
Thu Feb 10 06:49:35 EST 2011
Dear Mike and dear all,
here is ESA feedback on your questions regarding the overall policy to deal
with patented technologies for discussion at today's videoconf;
I am however not returning your presentation with the ESA proposals on the
individual issues, because I believe that we first have to agree on the
overall policy, and then the questions you pose may be straight forward to
answer or vanish altogether.
Issue (1) CCSDS/ISO process for standardizing patented technologies;
the proposed approach to adopt the ISO procedure for addressing
standardisation initiatives where there are patents involved is generally
accepted
in your reflection you are however not covering the geographical aspects,
which are important, since the patents are normally established on a
country basis; it would be good to know how ISO deals with patents that
are approved in say only one country with respect to those that are
approved in several countries;
it is understood that at the start of the work, i.e. when an item is
selected as the best candidate (or as one of the best ones) for
adoption/standardization. by CCSDS, where a patent is involved, a
principle agreement to provide licenses in a reasonable and
non-discriminatory manner has to be given by the owner of the patent; to
this effect, CCSDS will invite the patent holder to sign an ISO form,
i.e. the "Patent and License Declaration Form".
There is no further involvement nor responsibility of the CCSDS
organisation in the precise definition of the license nor in the licensing
process which does not need to be completed in time neither to start
developing nor to issue the std.
In particular, once the form has been signed, there is no obligation of
the CMC to get additional assurances from the licensor neither to request
disclosure of the proposed terms of the license
For the current CCSDS process to publish/adopt coding standards (LDPC,
SCCC /, DVB-S), which involve patented technologies, the process must be
engaged now by asking the patent holders to sign the above form
this shall imply the CCSDS organisation (represented by CMC) to request
Intellectual Ventures to sign such a form for the US patent claiming to
affect SCCC
also Caltech shall sign the form for the patent related to LDPC
and also ESA shall sign the form for the patent relative to SCCC
The use of CCSDS standards outside the CCSDS community should be seen as
nice to have as it extends their usage beyond our core business. The CCSDS
Procedures Manual says:
The primary products of the CCSDS are technical Recommendations that guide
internal developments of compatible standards within each participating
space Agency. It is believed that the CCSDS activities will significantly
enhance the planning and execution of future cooperative space missions.
An intrinsic contribution of the CCSDS Recommendations is the expected
higher degree of interoperability among Agencies that observe the
Recommendations.
Hence, ‘Space Missions’ are clearly those missions of the CCSDS
members.Likewise, the same Procedures Manual says:
2.2 CCSDS STAKEHOLDERS
CCSDS Stakeholders belong to the following broad categories:
a) ‘Space Mission’ organizations that directly execute
scientific and applications space missions, or ‘Space Mission
Support Infrastructure Provider’ organizations that design, operate
and maintain the worldwide tracking, data acquisition, mission
control, data processing, and data archiving networks that are
exposed to Space Mission organizations for the purposes of ‘cross
support’.
b) ‘Space Data User’ organizations representing the utilization
community who consume the information generated by the Space
Mission.
In other words, the stakeholders are the CCSDS member agencies. If a
license can be obtained on a fair and non-discriminatory basis for
non-commercial use, i.e. for the CCSDS members, the objective is met. If
the license owner is also willing to deliver licenses for commercial
applications, it is better but should not be considered mandatory. Note
that this is the rule that was applied for the Turbo Codes patent as well
as for the LDPC patent, and it was accepted by CESG in both cases.
Issue (2) the potential for CCSDS personnel to be in real or perceived
Conflict Of Interest (COI) situations when making decisions about the
international standardization of technologies that are covered by patents
ESA does not consider this to be an issue; we do not see the need to
develop "new ethical rules ... to guide CCSDS decision-makers concerning
their fiduciary duties ...". We trust that decision-makers as delegates of
their home institutions are bound by the code of ethics at their home
institutions.
The members of the CMC are not elected Ad Personam; they are delegates of
their organisations and as such they are representing their organisation
in the CMC, which implies by default that they are defending the interests
of their organisations. These interests include among others are to
establish useful international standards which are seen as of benefit to
the organisation. The member organisations subscribe to some well
established procedures, that are balanced and fair to everyone.
In the particular case of ESA, we are a non-profit, intergovernmental,
civil servant organisation, and therefore there are no lucrative or
commercial interests associated with our patents
Regards,
Juan Miro
Head Ground Systems Engineering Department
European Space Agency
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|"Kearney, Mike W. (MSFC-EO01)" <mike.kearney at nasa.gov> |
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|"CMC-exec at mailman.ccsds.org" <CMC-exec at mailman.ccsds.org> |
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| Date: |
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|26/01/2011 00:03 |
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|[CMC Alert] CMC SPECIAL TELECON - Standardization of Patented Technologies |
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|cmc-exec-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org |
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Dear CMC Members: I apologize in advance for this long email, but we have
some complex issues that need CMC attention very soon.
MANAGEMENT SUMMARY – CCSDS Issues have arisen concerning:
(1) CCSDS/ISO process for standardizing patented technologies;
(2) the potential for CCSDS personnel to be in real or perceived
Conflict Of Interest (COI) situations when making decisions about the
international standardization of technologies that are covered by
patents.
We discussed (1) in our London meeting in the context of current CCSDS
Channel Coding issues. In subsequent discussions, it has become apparent
that issue (2) must be addressed as we make decisions on (1). For both of
these issues, management decisions must be made by the CMC before the CCSDS
teams can take further action.
This is a time-critical discussion because it may hold up work on all three
candidates for new channel coding standards which are encumbered by patents.
Therefore I propose that we schedule a special CMC telecon, dedicated to this
topic, at 12:00 UTC on 10 February 2011. (Reminder – we have a general CMC
telecon scheduled for 5/6 April 2011). I will send out an Outlook calendar
item very soon, with logistical details (phone and WebEx information).
DETAILS:
The objective of the teleconference is to conduct CMC discussions and
decisions concerning the standardization of patented technology. Generally,
this has not been an issue for CCSDS in the past – the only previous instance
that I am aware of was the adoption of Turbo Codes in the Channel Coding and
Synchronization Blue Book (circa 1999), which required negotiation of a
license from France Telecom. However, that occurred well before the new
procedures that were adopted during the CCSDS restructuring in 2004.
As you will no doubt remember from the CMC (and IOAG) meetings in London, we
are now facing three new instances where technologies that are protected by
patents are being proposed for international standardization: these are (a)
Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coding; (b) Serial Concatenated Convolutional
Coding (SCCC), and; (c) the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-S) standard. At
the November meeting, ESA raised the SCCC patent issue by requesting a CMC
vote to advance the SCCC document to Agency review without considering a need
for advance review of a licensing agreement for its operational use.
Secretariat research has revealed that since we forward our standards track
documents to ISO as SC13 documents, we must comply with ISO guidelines for
standardizing patented technology. These guidelines are attached in PDF
form. The bottom line requirement of their process is that CCSDS/SC13 needs
to submit a ISO Licensing Declaration Form (also attached in DOC form) for
each patent that encumbers a CCSDS Recommended Standard that is advanced to
ISO. The joint patent policy of ISO, IEC and ITU is available at:
http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/fetch/2000/2122/3770791/customview.html?func=ll&objId=3770791&objAction=browse
.
ISO’s legal office has stated quite clearly that SC13 is required to follow
those guidelines, and to submit the license declaration form when needed.
This is requested by ISO “early in the standards development process”, so we
are already very late on this for some of the new candidate channel codes.
Note that current CCSDS rules require that licenses must be demonstrated to
be “fair and non-discriminatory”: instead of “fair and non-discriminatory”,
ISO uses “reasonable and non-discriminatory”. CCSDS may want to consider
changing to that definition, since SC13 is apparently already bound by those
terms.
The main issue here is the universal requirement that the patent holder must
be willing to negotiate licenses on a non-discriminatory basis, either free
or on reasonable terms and conditions. (Note that CCSDS already has this
requirement in its operating procedures.) Clearly, the CMC will need to
determine whether or not these conditions will be met by each proposed
licensor, and it is here that interpretation may be difficult. Some proposed
licenses have statements to the effect that royalty-free use will be granted
for the “peaceful, scientific and non-commercial exploration of space”.
However, they are mute in terms of whether a license will be granted to other
users (such as military applications, commercial space operators or the
industrial supplier community) and if so what the terms will be. Since CCSDS
has Observers and Associates as part of the organization who may fall into
the latter categories, does the CMC have an obligation to get an assurance
from the licensor that a license will be granted to all users on
non-discriminatory basis, and also to require disclosure of the proposed
terms of the license to the CMC so that we can be sure that they will be
“reasonable”? For instance, if a license would be granted “free” to a CCSDS
Member agency for space exploration use, but a military Observer agency or
commercial Associate would be charged a very large fee (or even refused),
would that be “fair and non-discriminatory”?
Moving on to issue (2), in the process of researching the SCCC patent issue
in terms of CCSDS procedures, the Secretariat noted that all three codes are
encumbered by Intellectual Property (IP) claims. The basic situation is that:
• Caltech ( which manages JPL) owns a patent related to the LDPC
codes
• Caltech owns a patent related to the SCCC codes and has assigned
its rights to a 3rd party
• ESA owns two patents related to the SCCC
• Those same two ESA patents are also a part of the DVB-S patent
pool
By adopting any or all of these candidate technologies as CCSDS/ISO
standards, it is likely that the “value” of those patents will grow and
therefore the potential monetary return from licenses may be increased. It is
therefore important that CCSDS should use the most thorough and impartial
processes to reach standardization decisions.
Clearly, making the “fair/reasonable and non-discriminatory” determination
requires professional judgment from CESG and CMC members. Since ESA and
Caltech own IP rights associated with the candidate codes, it is conceivable
that some members of the CESG and the CMC may appear to have a
Conflict-Of-Interest (COI) between their duties as CCSDS decision-makers and
the financial interests of their employers. In this case, the CMC should
review the professional implications of this situation and determine if new
ethical rules should be developed to guide CCSDS decision-makers concerning
their fiduciary duties to CCSDS and ISO when making determinations about the
“fair and non-discriminatory” terms of proposed licenses.
In the process of resolving these issues for the new CCSDS channel codes, it
is strongly recommended that the CMC should use this as a test-case for
establishing a permanent CCSDS policy that governs (a) any additional CCSDS
requirements associated with the standardization of patented technology and
(b) how potential conflicts of interest will be declared and resolved.
CONCLUSION:
Those are the issues that we need to discuss during the proposed telecon. If
you have strong or critical interest in the topic, I encourage you to “reply
all” to this email with your position, in advance of the telecon, so that the
telecon can be productive. I will prepare a presentation for the telecon
that hits on the above points and tries to focus us on the necessary
decisions.
Best Regards,
-=- Mike
Mike Kearney
CCSDS Chairman and General Secretary
www.ccsds.org
(Embedded image moved to file: pic00387.jpg)cid:3303993661_5210558
****************
Mail Code EO-01
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Alabama 35803, USA
+1-256-544-2029
Mike.Kearney at nasa.gov
(See attached file: ISO-IEC-ITU guideline on Patent policy-
Common_Guidelines_01_March_07.pdf)(See attached file:
ITU_ISO_IEC_Patent_Statement_and_Licensing_Declaration_Form.doc)
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