Telephony conference informal interview questionnaire draft

Results

If possible, please contact the Telephony conference FFII booth (emphasis is on personal talk rather than anonymous bitflow).

Name:

Email:

Position: (company, individual etc)

Your or your company's hands-on experience with patents

• Do you ever read patent publications ?
• Have you ever filed any patents ?
• Have you ever been warned/attacked by patent owners ?
• How much of its income does your company spend on R&D (in percent and/or absolute figures) ?

Evaluating example patents

What patents are there in the telephony/VoIP field you know of ?

Here we have some example patents from

• Nokia,
• Ericsson,
• Alcatel,
• Siemens and
• Philips.

Are any such patents causing trouble to you right now ?

Are any such causing trouble to others right now ?

Do you think these claims are reasonable in view of the R&D efforts behind them (testsuite questions)?

Use of Patents in Telecom Field

Are there trends among telecom companies to assert such patents aggressively (as e.g. M. Phelps has been doing for IBM and recently for Microsoft)? Is there e.g. a "Nokia tax", "Ericsson tax", "Siemens tax" etc, or would you expect one soon?

Are there many non-producing entities that specialise on patent production and patent rent extraction in the telecom field (e.g. Qualcomm)? Some examples?

Patents and Standards

Many Telecom standards are under UFO (uniform fee only, also called RAND) policy, which means that negotiations may be difficult and license fees must be collected and free software is excluded.

• Has this hampered free software development? examples?
• Has it slowed down progress of standardisation itself?

Is there a problem with patented de-facto standards, i.e. discriminatory licensing barring entry to the market ?

Patents, Telecom-Software Convergence and R&D

The CEOs of 5 leading telecom equipment companies have signed letter urging leading politicians to support software patentability in Europe, suggesting that the European Parliament's amendments are putting their R&D spending in jeopardy. Have you heard of this letter?

Why do you think the CEOs signed this letter?

• because these companies would lose substantial revenue if software patents were unenforcable
• because the CEOs tend to trust their patent lawyers (who stand to lose influence if the patent system is curtailed)
• other reasons: ....

Is the availability of software patents be an incentive or a disincentive for R&D investments in the telecom field?

What impact will convergence of telecom and internet have on the structure of the telecom market?

Support for FFII

Regarding the question of patentability of software in Europe, do you rather favor the parliaments' amended version of the directive or the commission's original version of the directive ?

Do you know the Call for Action II ?

• Have you signed?
• Are you an FFII supporter?
• Would your company like to be listed as signatory?

Would you like to provide expertise about the telecom sector and its patents at a conferences eg in Brussels, Berlin (Parliamentary Evenings) or elsewhere ?

Any referrals to other persons we should speak to / invite ?