Subject: [codec] FW: COM 16-LS 124 - Outgoing LS from SG16 meeting (26 October - 6 November 2009)

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:32:04 +0100

Dear all,

please find attached a liaison statement sent from SG 16. I extracted the files from the ZIP since we had some difficulties with the server.

Best regards,
Simao

<< ls-124.pdf >>
<< ls-124.doc >>

_____________________________________________
From: TSBSG16, ITU [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: 10 November 2009 10:57
To: Cullen Jennings; [email-masked]; Robert Sparks; Gregory Lebovitz; Russ Housley; Patrik Fältström
Cc: Campos, Simao; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: COM 16-LS 124 - Outgoing LS from SG16 meeting (26 October - 6 November 2009)

Dear all,

Kindly find attached the Liaison Statement COM16 - LS 124  on "speech and audio coding standardization" addressed to IETF RAI, IESG agreed at the ITU-T SG 16 meeting held in Geneva from 26 October to 6 November 2009. 
 
Best regards,

Rosa Angeles-León de Vivero
on behalf of ITU-T Study Group 16
ITU - Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB)
SG 16 e-mail: [email-masked]

  << ls-124.zip >>

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:14:03 +0900

Begin forwarded message:

> From: <[email-masked]>
> Date: November 10, 2009 9:32:04 PM GMT+09:00
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Subject: FW: COM 16-LS 124 - Outgoing LS from SG16 meeting (26  
> October - 6 November 2009)
>
> Dear all,
>
> please find attached a liaison statement sent from SG 16. I  
> extracted the files from the ZIP since we had some difficulties with  
> the server.
>
> Best regards,
> Simao
>
> << ls-124.pdf >>
> << ls-124.doc >>
>
> Cc: Campos, Simao; [email-masked]; [email-masked] 
> ; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Kindly find attached the Liaison Statement COM16 - LS 124  on  
> "speech and audio coding standardization" addressed to IETF RAI,  
> IESG agreed at the ITU-T SG 16 meeting held in Geneva from 26  
> October to 6 November 2009.
>
> Best regards,
>

---

From: "Christian Hoene" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:57:27 +0900

Good morning,

> > please find attached a liaison statement sent from SG 16. 

Reading the liaison statement, I was thinking about how a potential
cooperation with Study Group 16 might look like. I do not have a firm
opinion yet, however, at least three possibilities. Compete with SG16 as in
the case of H.323 vs SIP, let the ITU-T do the work, or work together in
some way.

Considering this high risk endeavor and the lack of experiences at the IETF
in regard of codec standardization, the last might be preferable. But then
again, what are the risks of cooperation? Will it slow down an IETF
standardization process? Will the particular requirements of the Internet be
ignored? Are there increased chances that the standardization is going to be
hindered or sabotaged? Will the travelling budget be exceeded? 
And, how the cooperation - if any - shall look like? Any opinions on that?

With best regards,

 Christian

---

From: "Kevin P. Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:03:41 +0900

Cullen Jennings wrote:

>> Cc: Campos, Simao; [email-masked];
>> [email-masked]; [email-masked];
>> [email-masked]
>> Kindly find attached the Liaison Statement COM16 - LS 124  on "speech
>> and audio coding standardization" addressed to IETF RAI, IESG agreed
>> at the ITU-T SG 16 meeting held in Geneva from 26 October to 6
>> November 2009.

At the risk of inflaming the licensing discussion even further, in the
ITU-T process, is it only required that the IPR disclosure claim to
offer the IPR under RAND, but that there is no actual confirmation that
the discloser's terms would in fact be widely agreed upon to be RAND?

For example, to my knowledge, Polycom has recently begun offering
royalty-free (under a patent non-assert) licensing for their IPR
including in G.719. However, the other primary IPR holder in G,719 is
Ericsson, and the process of determining licensing terms for their IP
begins with signing a non-disclosure agreement with them. Given that,
it's completely impossible to know whether a licensing offer from them
is discriminatory or not, because the recipient cannot discuss the
proposed terms with other existing or potential licensees.

If this arrangement qualifies under the ITU-T's definition of RAND, then
it seems that doesn't result in licensability under terms that most
people would term 'reasonable', let alone compatible with open source
licensing.

-- 
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
skype: kpfleming | jabber: [email-masked]
Check us out at www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org

---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:59:12 +0900

Hi Kevin,

While, in some jurisdictions, there are tests on what qualifies as RAND and
what does not, it is true that RAND commitments alone typically do not
provide a potential user with guidance about the commercial terms of a
license.  However, it gives the potential user an assurance that a license
is actually available.  Some say that it makes the hurdle much higher in
obtaining injunctions for unlicensed use of a patent.  Both are Good Things,
from a righttaker's viewpoint.  Remember, without a RAND commitment, a
patent allows the rightholder to forbid anyone in the jurisdiction, for
whatever reason, to use the claimed subject matter.

The definition of "Reasonable" in RAND, and "Fair and Reasonable" in FRAND,
are both heavily discussed and litigated.  I doubt that you will full
agreement on these definition if you ask more than one person.  However, I
have, so far, never heard that the NDA part of the story has been questioned
in the licensing community.  It is common that those discussions are held
under NDA.  There are valid commercial and legal reasons why this is the
case.

RAND does NOT mean that all possible users will get the same terms after the
bilateral discussions that are common in licensing.  That is one reasons why
licensing discussions are typically under NDA.

All that said, there is a movement ongoing in the patents&standards
community to allow a rightholder, using the SDOs communication process, to
provide potential users voluntarily with information of licensing
terms--typically something like the maximum royalty that is being charged,
and expressed as a percentage of the unit price.  IEEE was the first major
organization to add this to their policy.  Google "patent standard ex ante"
if you are interested.  In a few cases, ex ante mechanisms have actually
started to see use; in others, I would argue they have seen abuse.  Neither
the ITU nor the IETF embrace ex ante disclosures of licensing terms in their
policies, although, at least in the IETF, it's possible to make those.  If a
rightholder were truly interested in publishing its terms, there would also
be other non-SDO means to do so.

For a number of (mostly antitrust-related) reasons, IMO and AFAIK, ex ante
disclosures will remain voluntary in most legislations and in the
foreseeable future.

Stephan

---

From: "Kevin P. Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:06:57 +0900

> licensing discussions are typically under NDA.

I wouldn't expect so, and I certainly understand why negotiations are
frequently under NDA. However, it essentially removes all the 'teeth'
from the 'ND' part of 'RAND'. If I approach a patent holder and they
offer me licensing at 10 times the rate they have ever charged any
previous party (because I am a competitor, or I am a small company, or
they don't like the color of my company's logo), I would think that most
people would consider that discriminatory. Since there is no recourse,
their 'offer' to license under RAND could be considered to be in bad
faith, and they can continue to make such offers in further
standards-making processes without any concerns raised by the receivers
of those offers.

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:31:12 +0900

Welcome to the world of standards. This issue almost tore the W3C  
apart. At the end of the day, after a year of fierce, destructive  
fighting, we ended up pretty much where we started from.

This stuff has to do with law and business, neither of which seem to  
be governed by the laws of physics. That is, logic does not apply.

On Nov 11, 2009, at 11:06 AM, Kevin P. Fleming wrote:

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