[rights] Sony Licenses InterTrust Patents

Title: Sony Licenses InterTrust Patents

Folks,

  I hope someone can help me understand what's going on here; I'm certainly no patent lawyer but I can tell that our little TC isn't going to be able to ignore the policy issues around intellectual property. Sony certainly disagrees with some of the statements I heard on Tuesday about no patents other than Content Guard's being relevant to our work.

   In Thursday's (May 23) Wall Street Journal:

InterTrust Signs Sony Licensing Deal

...Sony agreed to pay InterTrust a $28.5 million fee, plus undisclosed future royalties, to license all of InterTrust's patents for use in Sony consumer products that distribute digital media. The patents include a series of inventions in the field known as digital rights managementm or DRM...

So I'd like to know:

1) What role, if any, is Sony playing in the MPEG21 activity (or any other standards body with DRM concerns)?

2) Has Sony also licensed the Content Guard patents?

3) Has anyone suggested to Sony that they get involved in the OASIS TC?

4) Is it appropriate that we ask the OASIS board or some other body to help interpret this announcement and tell us what the impact is on our work?

-bob

Robert J. Glushko, Ph.D.

Engineering Fellow  

One Market Street, 13th Floor Steuart Tower

San Francisco CA 94105

415-644-8731