Member License and Intellectual Property FAQ
The full Intellectual Property Rights Policy is listed as Attachment A in the MemberShip Agreement.
Question:
Our lawyers want to understand the scope and force of the limited patent license - in both directions. Can you tell us more about it?Answer:
The reciprocal IP license grant between all Khronos Promoters, Contributors and Adopters (who elect to take advantage of it) is an agreement not to make any claims on any Necessary IP, for royalties or any other reason, against each other as a result of any of the parties implementing and shipping products based on OpenGL ES.
Necessary IP is very tightly defined to limit the scope of any IP licensed from any party and:
- must be essential to the implementation - with no commercially reasonable alternative
- does not include any enabling technologies that are expressly defined in the API - e.g. semiconductor or technology
Question:
In that statement above… how should I read "based on"? For example, is our proprietary software that interfaces to OpenGL ES - "based on" OpenGL ES - or does this refer only to an OpenGL ES implementation "based on" the OpenGL ES specification? I.e., that implements the specification?
Answer:
The agreement states the that IP for "c) any portions or combinations of any Product whose purpose is not required for compliance with [the OpenGL ES] Specification" is not included in the license.
Or, more precise wording of this might be:
The reciprocal IP license grant between all Khronos Promoters, Contributors and Adopters (who elect to take advantage of it) is an agreement not to make any claims on any Necessary IP, for royalties or any other reason, against each other for the portion of any product that implements the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification."
So IP for your proprietary software - or any other software that calls OpenGL ES - is definitely *not* dragged in.
