This weeks reading:
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/patent-clouds-remain-over-vp8-google.html
This blog entry talks about many things, but what struck out to me was the royalty-free licensing agreement between Google and Nokia. Currently, Nokia is suing HTC over patent infringment over the use of an 'apparatus and method for compressing a motion vector field.' Google has chosen on to take a royalty free license from Nokia concerning this patent (EP1206881). However, in email transcriptions, the context of the agreement seems faulty and does not follow policy. The definition of the agreement which is linked in the transcription isn't actually to the W3C current and royalty-free patent policy, but instead to a 3 year old policy.
This is interesting to me as the policy that Google utilizes for the terms of their agreement is actually an outdated policy. Will this actually hold in a court of law? I feel that it would not since they are making the agreement this year, but utilizing old and outdated definitions. I think Google will need to update the terms of the agreement utilizing the current terms in order to fully protect themselves in case of a lawsuit.
Although the policy is three years old, would this invalidate the agreement Google had with Nokia? If so, I wonder how the this case will settle.
ReplyDelete