ITU Workshop on Standards and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Issues Software Copyrights issues

Dr. Ir. Serge RAES, Intellectual Property & Standards Manager France Telecom — Orange

New Delhi, India, 19-20 December 2011 International Telecommunication Union

Internal Organization

Orange Labs & Network Carriers Procurement Legal IP IP & R&D Licensing Standardization & Ecosystems Dev.

Research & Strategy IP & Standardization Co-Ordination New Delhi, India, 19-20 December 2011 International Telecommunication Union

What is Software ?

ITU and ETSI adopted a very broad definition A lot of this Software should be regarded as normal contributed "text", except for its "use" Special Royalty-Free for data structures (mandatory use) w/o additional restriction Text in standards: SSO receives copyrights in the final standard Initial contributor retains copyrights in the contribution's contents International Telecommunication Union

Specific regime for codecs

For voice or video coding, the standard is described by software in a programming language (e.g. ANSI C) prevailing over text ITU HEVC (successor of H.264) is developped collaboratively by many contributors ITU voice coders (G.711.1, G.718) are developped by a small group of companies  Avoid incorporation of 3rd Party software that could contaminate the whole standard  International Telecommunication Union

Source code contributions

France Telecom – Orange is one of the few main contributors [ http://www.itu.int/ipr ] ITU Declarations: 17/116 Skills required: a good combination of Tech leader in media compression Good analyst/programmer Software deliveries: Source code in fixed point representation Source code in floating point  International Telecommunication Union

Other application of source code

Future standard development methods as a faster and more efficient track to market delivery/adoption Enables dynamic standard behaviour simulation and fine-tuning Migration to System On a Chip Vigilence required on validating copyright licensing terms and conditions are compatible with original intent / licensing conditions Both at company internal and SSO levels International Telecommunication Union

Example of France Telecom strategy

File for Software Copyrights protection  official date (in France [ http://app.legalis.net

]) Licensing of software copyrights in a standard source code is not considered as a business, unlike for Essential Patent rights Natural companion to Essential Patents licensing in Patent Pools e.g. ITU G.729 royalty distribution and DVB/ETSI CSA (HW implementation) International Telecommunication Union

Conclusion

Software copyrights infringement is not a serious threat (yet) in ICT industry: no litigation reported so far However, companies should be prepared before making Software contributions to SSO Representation and warranty Countries should be cautious in attempting to make local adaptations to existing standards containing Software Risk of loosing both Copyright and Essential Patent licensing commitments International Telecommunication Union

Thank you

Serge RAES Intellectual Property & Standards Senior Manager c/o France Telecom - Orange Office IB 313T 38-40 rue du Général Leclerc F-92130 Issy Les Moulineaux France Tel: +33 1 4529 6007 Fax: +33 1 4529 5126 [email protected]

International Telecommunication Union