Re: Sun IPR statement on XPointer

["Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@east.sun.com>]

Hi folks-- Let me weigh in here, before heading onto a long flight and a 
trip that may possibly keep me from email for a few days...

I think Christian is indeed quoting from the terms and conditions Sun 
initially offered, which is still linked from the current version of the 
XPointer spec out there.  That version is superseded by what I posted here 
a few days ago.  Until XPointer is revised and published again, it won't be 
able to change that link -- but I can check on the possibility of getting 
the entity body retrieved by that URI to be updated!

On the issue of prior art: As promised, we did assemble all the information 
on prior art (there was quite a lot) and submitted it to the Patent 
Office.  I can't predict the outcome nor the timeframe, so (also as 
promised) we proceeded with developing a fresh IPR statement.

BTW, this might seem a little confusing, but what we initially published 
were "terms and conditions" of an actual license that we were (putatively) 
offering to all comers, but this new IPR statement is more like meta-terms; 
it provides the rules we will abide by in granting licenses to all 
comers.  In my understanding, it's this latter type of statement that is 
normally provided for W3C-related technology.  (Most companies don't post 
their IPR statements on XML-Dev, but you can see lots of samples by looking 
at "submission" Notes made to W3C at http://www.w3.org/TR.)  There are 
probably similar statements at places like Apache; I'll try provide links 
next week.

On the actual statement: We worked with W3C to assure that it meets 
generally accepted requirements for royalty-free licensing.  (I'm not sure 
how much the W3C confidentiality situation allows me to say beyond this; 
I'm checking.)

Even though IANAL, I think this new statement looks pretty good: guaranteed 
royalty-free, guaranteed reasonable and non-discriminatory even beyond 
that, applies even before Recommendation stage (which some of these sorts 
of things do not), applies to Sun's entire patent portfolio and not just 
the '729 patent, uses a standard of commercial plausibility (which I 
understand is a fairly generous thing), etc.  Though the "essential" 
definition stuff may look a bit scary, I found I could understand it more 
easily than the average large technical specification. :-)

I hope these thoughts are helpful.  If you have additional questions, by 
all means let me know.

         Eve

At 11:40 AM 4/27/01 +0100, Christian Nentwich wrote:

> > > >5.  In no event shall Sun or You be obligated to extend the
> > ...
> >
> > Huh? I'm sorry Christian, but I don't see that in the material
> > Eve sent on 4/24. That looks like something from the old
> > version. Can you double-check, and post the version you are
> > seeing if it is, in fact, the most recent?
>
>It's a copy and paste from the document linked from the W3C XPointer
>page. Did I foolishly assume that that would be the latest version? If
>so, sorry about that.
>
>Christian

--
Eve Maler                                             +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Development  eve.maler @ east.sun.com