Subject: FW: case on whether "required" includes "optional"

From: "Lawrence E. Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 16:58:30 -0800

For those who doubt that patents are important to standards, or who
minimize the difficulty of writing enforceable licenses, I'm referring
the attached case.  

Read it only if you have time for a fascinating and deadly serious
excursion into the legal world of software patents for industry
standards.  

The W3C patent policy working group discussed the "required/optional"
issue for several months.  I'm not sure what IETF's policy says about
this.

/Lawrence Rosen
ROSENLAW.COM, a technology law firm
General counsel, Open Source Initiative
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * fax: 707-485-1243
email: [email-masked]
www.rosenlaw.com