[CMC Alert] CMC SPECIAL TELECON - Standardization of PatentedTechnologies

JAXA CCSDS Secretary Office jaxa.ccsds at jaxa.jp
Wed Jan 26 20:51:27 EST 2011


Dear Mr. Mike Kearny and CMC members,

I confirmed the schedule.
Mr. Tsutomu Shigeta of JAXA will participate the telecon.


Best regards,

N.Nomura
JAXA CCSDS Secretariat

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***  JAXA CCSDS Secretary Office     ***
***   <E-Mail> JAXA.CCSDS at jaxa.jp    ***
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kearney, Mike W. (MSFC-EO01)" <mike.kearney at nasa.gov>
To: <CMC-exec at mailman.ccsds.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 8:01 AM
Subject: [CMC Alert] CMC SPECIAL TELECON - Standardization of 
PatentedTechnologies


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
[cid:image001.jpg at 01CBB978.51220830]
****************
Mail Code EO-01
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Alabama  35803, USA
+1-256-544-2029
Mike.Kearney at nasa.gov<mailto:Mike.Kearney at nasa.gov>





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