IPR on Ecma Office Open XML

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One of the first comments on Rod's blog related to IPR on Ecma Office Open XML.  Here is a quick explanation of how we handle this..

There is a great deal of confusion on the IPR points in relation to the Ecma Office Open XML standard. 

We [Microsoft] have provided assurances for full or partial implementations under three different approaches (from which an implementer can select). These options include:

  1. Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (the OSP),
  2. Microsoft’s Covenant (the Covenant) and a
  3. Royalty-free Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) license.

Here is a little external commentary in support of each model and the applicability of it to Ecma Office Open XML...

1. The OSP: https://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

Red Hat believes that the text of the OSP gives sufficient flexibility to implement the listed specifications in software licensed under free and open source licenses. We commend Microsoft’s efforts to reach out to representatives from the open source community and solicit their feedback on this text, and Microsoft's willingness to make modifications in response to our comments.
Mark Webbink, Deputy General Counsel of Red Hat Inc

 

2. The Covenant:

This covenant goes beyond anything Microsoft has ever done before. It means that both open source and proprietary software can compete in implementations of these important XML schemas without the threat of patent litigation from Microsoft.... We can participate in crafting the standard in ECMA, we can read and write Office 2003 files in open source applications, and we don’t have to pay royalties to Microsoft to do so.
Larry Rosen - former General Counsel of the Open Source Initiative and author of "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law"

A full 3rd party view: https://www.bakernet.com/NR/rdonlyres/CC54A6B6-79E8-4E0D-B290-C836D5F70867/0/OpenXML.pdf  

 

3. RAND Licensing:

Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing (RAND) is a term for a type of licensing typically used during standardization processes. The normal case is that when joining the standardization body, companies agree that if they receive any patents on technologies which become essential to the standard then they agree to allow other groups attempting to implement the standard to use those patents and they agree that the charges for those patents shall be reasonable. RAND licenses allow a competitive market to develop between multiple companies making products which implement a standard.

From – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_Non_Discriminatory_Licensing

I hope that helps to clear up some of the concerns here.