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Joint OOR-Ontolog-NCBO-CC-IAOA-OASIS "OpenOntologyRepository_IPR Policy and Issues" Panel Discussion (session-1) - Thu 9-Sep-2010

  • Topic: "OOR-IPR session 1: An Exposition on Relevant IPR Regimes"
  • Chair: Mr. PeterYim (Co-convener, Ontolog & OOR; Secretary, IAOA) - [ slides ]
  • Panelists:
    • Mr. JamesBryceClark, JD (General Counsel, OASIS) - "Some Notes on OOR IPR" - [ slides ]
    • Mr. JohnWilbanks (VP of Science, Creative Commons) - "licensing and ontologies: research from creative commons" - [ slides ]
    • Mr. BrucePerens (original author of the "Open Source Definition") - "OOR Open Source Software Licensing" - [ slides ]

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 9-September-2010
  • Start Time: 10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT / 7:30pm CEST / 6:30pm BST / 17:30 UTC UTC
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  • Please note that this session will be recorded, and the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

Resources

Agenda & Proceedings

Panel Discussion Session: "OOR-IPR session 1: An Exposition on the State of Relevant IPR Regimes"

  • Session Format & Agenda: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call:

Abstracts

  • Session Topic: "OOR-IPR session 1: An Exposition on the State of Relevant IPR Regimes"
This "OOR-IPR mini-series" will, hopefully, start a dialog among the global ontology community, to specifically address IPR issues relating to the "open ontology repository (OOR)" initiative. The discussion will, invariably, touch upon IPR issues pertaining to ontology in general as well.
This mini-series is jointly organized by the OOR initiative, the Ontolog-community, NCBO (US National Center for Biomedical Ontology), CC (Creative Commons), IAOA (the International Association for Ontology and its Applications) and OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards).
Given the complexity of the issues involved, one can look as this mini-series to merely be the beginning of a quest, by the collaborating parties and their communities, to fully understand the issues, and to get themselves into a position to address them.
In the opening session, we have invited some of the top experts in open IPR to give us an exposition on the IPR landscape and the state of relevant IPR regimes.
Please refer also to the background and thoughts collected during the process of organizing this mini-series, at: OpenOntologyRepository_IPR & OpenOntologyRepository_IPR/Discussion

Panel Members Briefings

Abstract: ... this talk will provide an overview on the IPR landscape as it relates to OOR, open standards and the OASIS IPR policies that may be used as a reference for this community.
  • Title: "licensing and ontologies: research from creative commons"
Abstract: ... this talk will be devoted to open content, scientific data and an exposition of the Creative Commons licenses.
Abstract: ... this presentation will delve into "openness," open technology, open source software licenses, and what might really matter here, for the OOR initiative.

Transcript of the online chat during the session

see raw transcript here.

(for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.)

Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.

-- begin of chat session --

Peter P. Yim: .

.

Welcome to the Joint OOR-Ontolog-NCBO-CC-IAOA-OASIS "OpenOntologyRepository_IPR Policy and Issues"

Panel Discussion (session-1) - Thu 9-Sep-2010

  • Topic: "OOR-IPR session 1: An Exposition on Relevant IPR Regimes"
  • Chair: Mr. Peter P. Yim (Co-convener, Ontolog & OOR; Secretary, IAOA)
  • Keynote Speaker: Dr. George Strawn (Director of the (US) National Coordination Office for Networking

and Information Technology R&D) - "IP and IT"

  • Panelists:

o Mr. JamesBryceClark, JD (General Counsel, OASIS) - "Some Notes on OOR IPR"

o Mr. John Wilbanks (VP of Science, Creative Commons) - "licensing and ontologies: research from creative commons"

o Mr. Bruce Perens (original author of the "Open Source Definition") - "OOR Open Source Software Licensing"

Please refer to dial-in and other details (include slides download links) on the session page

at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_09_09

.

JamieClark: Pinging, just to establish that I'm in the chat room. I also have visual into the VNC

desktop. Personally, as a speaker, I plan to ask Peter to advance my slides, and not to bother with

manipulating the remote session at my end. Cheers all

Peter P. Yim: Hi JamieClark ... I actually do get to advance the slides for everyone!

anonymous morphed into Steve Ray

anonymous1 morphed into John Wilbanks

anonymous2 morphed into Bruce Perens

Bruce Perens: Testing.

anonymous1 morphed into Joel Bender

anonymous1 morphed into Cameron Ross

JamieClark: Jamie's here (on voice)

anonymous2 morphed into Yuriy Milov

anonymous morphed into Bobbin Teegarden

anonymous1 morphed into Mike Bennett

Peter P. Yim: Dr. George Strawn speaking ...

JamieClark: Thanks, George: excellent remarks and we appreciate the US government's support for

developing this concept.

Ravi Sharma: Dr. George Strawn - Many thought provoking and positive areas covering S&T, Knowledge

and Information and ontology / OOR carving its space in the open / global IPR space. These valuabe

inputs will nurture the purpose of this series and spearhead the focus of deliberations. many

thanks.

anonymous morphed into Doug Foxvog

Peter P. Yim: Mr. JamesBryceClark, JD speaking (started 11:02am PDT) ...

JamieClark: JBC slide 1-2: Topic introduction.

JamieClark: JBC slide 3: Definition of "open" largely is a defined community's policy chat about its

requirements. Consider: even a variety among standards projects: OASIS, IETF, W3C, ISO, ITU ...

maybe microformats.org? ...

JamieClark: JBC slide 4: Some say that some restrictions are *virtuous*.

Bruce Perens: You could do that with trademark rather than copyright and it would still work.

Mike Bennett: OASIS "Keeps Copyright" in their standards - doesn't (C) exist automatically? Presume

means "Asserts Copyright"?

Bruce Perens: Mike, this means that OASIS doesn't abandon its copyright and dedicate the document to

the public domain.

Mike Bennett: Thanks Bruce.

JamieClark: JBC slide 5: License form matters too. Key issue for real user: "safe to ignore"

JamieClark: JBC slide 6: If you can't get at material, its theoretical legal availability is sort of

irrelevant. ... Reliance on open data sources = sunk costs.

JamieClark: JBC slide 7: As for legal uncertainty, let's plan for the worst. Note, a LATER session

in this OOR-OPR series will discuss what best polices to use.

JamieClark: JBC slide 8: How one stable host organization (OASIS) handles the policy issues.

JamieClark: JBC slide 9: Look at the *workflow* of rights and contributions as well. It's not a

static snapshot.

JamieClark: JBC slide 10: Using a federated system introduces some additional issues.

Terry Longstreth: JBC Slide 9: I'm unsure of how fine a distinction can be drawn between 'read' and

use' permission. Is there a restriction on what I, ('public') can do with materials others

submitted with open access?

JamieClark: JBC slide 11: Using a rating / opinions system introduces some additional issues.

JamieClark: JBC slide 12: Thanks. Call anytime with questions.

JamieClark: ---

Peter P. Yim: Mr. John Wilbanks speaking (started 11:27am PDT) ...

John Wilbanks: see - http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

Ravi Sharma: @JamieClark - lifecycle related - is it a workable proposition that even if some

organization makes some comercial value add on what is largely open source that it automatically

turns to open status in a shorter period say 3-5 years for all such proprietary add-ons to become

public.

Bruce Perens: Ravi Sharma, is this question regarding standards IP submissions or something else?

Ravi Sharma: Bruce - I was thinking of OOR primarily, but really it would also apply to

Knowledge-bases. Standards are facilitators for connecting, validating and communication of the

knowledge pieces and bases.

Mike Bennett: @Ravi that does raise an interesting question, whether there are the same IPR

considerations for class-level ontologies versus instances.

Bruce Perens: Ravi Sharma - For reasons that have just been discussed I am far from sure you can make

any requirements stick upon the creators of commercial derivative works.

JamieClark: Agree with Bruce. Don't rely heavily on terms that probably don't stick; and we know

from experience that some don't.

JamieClark: Reading the Dental Association quotes. Assertions of creativity in classification sound

a LOT like the 'Feist' and 'West v. Mead Data' assertions that phone directory listings and caselaw

page numbers were creative ... Saying this not as a copyright lawyer in 2010, but because John is

giving me some flashbacks from 1987. (As a frisky young judicial law clerk, I was involved in the

West vs. Mead case.)

Ravi Sharma: Mike - if class-level is open, others can use it as pattern for creating instances but

such creator might change status to non-open but it would become open based on original open-use

license declaration.

Bruce Perens: There is substantial doubt that a reference to an open ontology caused the referencing

ontology to be a derivative work of the open one.

John Wilbanks: Bruce - agreed. But copying ontologies is an essential part of ontology practice, and

making changes to the local copies is as well...

Mike Bennett: @Ravi agreed. That would be a significant use case for having an ontology in the first

place, hence the importance of distinguishing T-Box v A-Box in thinking about these IPR issues I

think.

Cameron Ross: John - For clarity, is the CC BY license amiable to using an ontology within a

commercial application?

John Wilbanks: Cameron - yes, CC BY is completely compatible with commercial use

JamieClark: ---

Peter P. Yim: Mr. Bruce Perens speaking (started 11:47) ...

Patrick Cassidy: @John Wilbanks: concerning the question of whether an ontology is software: at least

the ontologies that are produced in a format that has associated reasoners (such as OWL or FOL

format) should be considered as a form of software, since they are in fact instructions about how to

perform inferences from data. In fact, I think of logic-based ontologies as little more than

software in a specific declarative format, easier to understand and easier to modify than

traditional code.

John Wilbanks: Patrick - this is a fundamental question.

Ravi Sharma: Bruce and JamieClark - can we not declare on open source material that any use based on

this material is only non-open for x years?

John Wilbanks: my instinct is that the courts will be utterly confused by the ontology question

JamieClark: John (a W3C alumni) mentions the W3C patent policy as a possible prototype. For the most

part, the rules and workflow of the W3C, OASIS and IETF policies on patent handling are pretty

similar. So I suspect the models would all lead to a similar design. didn't quote W3C's instance in

this case, as has a deeply-negotiated rule (it's section 7) that royalties are permitted, but must

be studied and made the sole personal decision of an individual. (Sort of like the IANA under Jon

Postel in 1996, versus ICANN today.) Here's the link to the W3C policy:

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-PAG-conclude

John Wilbanks: To JamieClark's point, yes - the technical standards world has worked out patent

policies reasonably well, and OASIS and IETF are both excellent models as well

John Wilbanks: I used the W3C one because I know it better, no other reason!

Ravi Sharma: Bruce - was that Katz case? IT related?

Bruce Perens: Jacobsen v. Katzer. Look in Wikipedia

Mike Bennett: @Patrick but many use an ontology as a technology-neutral, formal business definition

of subject matter. It so happens you can then do those things with it if it's in OWL or similar.

JamieClark: @JohnWilbanks, I think our tribe figured out, a while ago, that the delta between the

established practices is quite small, except in marketing brochures :D

John Wilbanks: JamieClark, heh. True. I can send you some lovely corporate marketing documents for

closed ontologies.

Cameron Ross: John: Would CC BY be considered "Gift" licensing?

John Wilbanks: Cameron, I believe so - given that Bruce classifies BSD in there, and that CC BY is an

analog to BSD.

Patrick Cassidy: @Mike - if an ontology is fairly simple and doesn't include restrictions or other

structures that enable inference more complicated than simple taxonomic subsumption, it does in fact

contain instructions for computation that can be automatically executed. This is the function of

software, regardless of whether there are lots of documentation that is also useful independent of

the instructions.

Mike Bennett: @Patrick yes but I don't think you can necessarily determine intention from inspection.

Patrick Cassidy: @MIke-oops! if its simple, it *isn't* necessarily a program, but if is more

complicated, it is hard to distinguish from software.

Peter P. Yim: @Bruce - slide#8 ... can you give a quick rundown on how people would circumvent GPL

please?

Bruce Perens: It's a long talk. Can we do it another time?

JamieClark: @Ravi - The idea of a sunset rule on restrictions is a darn interesting one. If

compromise is needed. But there's a strong opendata movement these days; as a negotiating matter in

the service of openness, as a personal opinion, I'd rather start from "open", as the default, and

save ideas like "open soon" as middle-ground options only when needed. TimBL in the UK, OSTP in the

US, and others are creating some great social pressure to open up data right now. (If you think

about userfriendly simple rights, on an icon-based, no-lawyer-need basis like CC, how would we

happily represent "not open now, but it will be later"? Feh.)

John Wilbanks: @Ravi, there is some sunset stuff in the US National Institute of Health's open access

repository policy, but I tend to agree with @JamieClark - let's go for open first. Default rules of

open, with opt outs clearly defined and accessible, are a good starting point.

Peter P. Yim: @JohnWilbanks - is there a (cc) license (for content) that is similar/analogous to LPGL

(for software)?

John Wilbanks: @Peter, we only provide a single share-alike license

John Wilbanks: although we do provide layperson readable and metadata versions of GPL, LGPL, and BSD

licenses

Peter P. Yim: thanks, John

John Wilbanks: @BrucePerens, the core right is the right to make non-commercial copies

Ravi Sharma: presenters: Ontologies are not patentable - is this defendable position as connected

ontologies might be open or common relationships are open and thus not patentable? Similar argument

for proprietary ontologies?

John Wilbanks: (all CC licenses carry this right, not just the right to read)

John Wilbanks: thanks @BrucePerens for noting my comment

JamieClark: Bruce asserts: part of proper host/repository/community management may be to *permit*

forking, for virtuous quality & contribution reasons.

JamieClark: @Ravi, the simple statement of problem is that "Eventually we will win this baseless

lawsuit" is not equal to "This will be easy because we have the right to do it."

JamieClark: <cough>SCO<koff koff>

John Wilbanks: apologies all, i have to jump off the call for a meeting

John Wilbanks: it has been an honor and pleasure, and thanks to @PeterYim

JamieClark: Thanks John! great stuff

John Wilbanks: please buzz me at wilbanks@creativecommons.org if you want to talk more, and i'll be

on the next call as well

John Wilbanks: @JamieClark - let's talk more!

John Wilbanks: (also, honored to be on a panel with @BrucePerens and George!)

John Wilbanks: bye all

Peter P. Yim: Bruce's slide#15 - @Wilbanks and @Perens - John, while your recommended against a

reciprocal license, does Brunce's case of the MySQL dual licensing arrangement worth considering for

(some portions of) OOR? ... the reason I am asking (and in line with GeorgeStrawn's "Open access is

good, as is profit seeking") is that we need to make innovation sustainable!

Cameron Ross: @Peter It would be unlikely that I, for one, would release contributions under a dual

license regime.

JamieClark: BTW, here's an instance of FOSS folks (Apache) doing its legal diligence to make sure

that the OASIS patent & copyright rules would permit OASIS standards (OpenDocument) to be used under

the Apache licenses. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2006/OpenDocument.pdf (PDF link) This

is an instance of the kind of "you better check with your lawyer" review that John and Bruce

mentioned. If only all lawyers wrote as clearly as Eben Moglen ...

JamieClark: ---

Peter P. Yim: Q&A and general discussion starts now ... (12:20pm PDT) ...

George Strawn: "Are ontologies copyrightable or patentable now?" - panelists please discuss

Bruce / Jamie: @George - the jury is still out, and these are questions that probably won't have a

clear answer for a while yet

Ravi Sharma: All- please see same question earlier where I feel these should not be easy or easily

possible to patent. There is however a compelling counterargument for lifesaving pharmaceuticals

that may use bioinformatics?

Cameron Ross: Would releasing an ontology under a Open Source or CC license, enforcible or not,

constitute prior art for future patent claims?

Bruce Perens: @CameronRoss, any publication can constitute prior art.

Doug Foxvog: @CameronRoss: A public release of material should certainly (imho as a non-lawyer)

constitute prior art.

Peter P. Yim: @anyone ... are we past the point of no return on the US Patent Reform to go from

first-to-invent to a "first-to-file" regime?

Bruce Perens: Peter, no but our main enemy on this entire argument is pharma.

Ravi Sharma: All- I am reminded of "standing on Shoulders of giants" and desire for knowledge in open

regime. Can the community support of this type of assertion help keep ontologies open sourced?

Cameron Ross: So, could we not employ an Open Source or CC licensing strategy to protect the OOR

against future patents. Of course there's still the issue of existing patents.

Doug Foxvog: One ontology can be expressed in multiple semantic languages. Copyright couldn't cover

the same expression in both OWL and CycL, say.

Cameron Ross: @DougFoxvog - So can one circumvent copyright using automated translation?

Doug Foxvog: @Cameron: good question. The information can not be copyrighted, although a specific

expression of it in a specific language may be.

Mike Bennett: @CameronRoss copyright depends on being able to demonstrate something was copied rather

than prior art (as patents are) so transformation if detectable would fall foul of copyright.

Cameron Ross: @MikeBennett - That's what I thought. Thanks.

Terry Longstreth: So, we need an implementation neutral form of expression for the intellectual

content of an ontology?

Bruce Perens: USC 17.1.102.b says:

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea,

procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the

form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

In ADA v. Delta Dental (at http://lw.bna.com/lw/19971014/964140.htm) the appeals court judge found

that there is sufficient creative expression in a taxonomy to make it copyrightable. A quote from

http://www.invispress.com/law/copyright/dental.html is educational:

The ADA couldn't stop dentists from using the ADA Code in their forms and records, or stop Delta

from distributing forms that invited dentists to use the ADA's Code. However, the Court found that

it was a violation of the ADA's copyright for Delta to distribute a copy of the code itself.

The degree to which this applies to ontology, and indeed the value of the case as precedent, is

debatable. There is a discussion at http://www.benedict.com/Digital/Software/Ontology.aspx that

concludes that ontologies that refer to other ontologies are not derivative works of those other

ontologies under copyright law. Ontologies might be the subject of patent rather than copyright to

the extent that they can be restricted effectively, and patenting one presents its own problems.

JamieClark: Thanks for an excellent session, it's an honor to work with Peter, George, Bruce, John &

this group.

Joel Bender: Thank you!

Mike Bennett: Thanks all! Most helpful session

Peter P. Yim: thank you all ... great session!

Mike Dean: Thanks for a great session

Peter P. Yim: -- session ended: 12:47pm PDT --

-- end of chat session --

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  • Conference Date and Time: 9-Sep-2010 10:36am ~ 12:42pm PDT
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