Geneva, Switzerland, 22 October 2013
Opening Address
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We are now coming to the close of this accelerated round of meetings of the IPR AHG that was aimed at finding a solution to some of the SEP-related problems that were highlighted at last year’s Roundtable, in particular:
- The availability of injunctive relief, and
- The meaning of reasonable
in the context of SEPs and RAND.
I am very grateful for the tremendous effort the participants of this group have made in addressing these two issues over the last twelve months.
The group has had 85 documents submitted to it, and heard arguments and positions from the many experts that have travelled the globe to be here in Geneva.
I am pleased to see that great effort have been made to bridge the very diverse views that existed at the start of this work, and especially grateful for the attempts to find some common ground and the basis of compromise text.
We now have a final four days to try to find consensus on some short high-level texts, which will help alleviate the difficulties that were identified at the Roundtable. I am grateful that we have had a very good cross section of interested parties active in the group – including vendors, operators, academia, other standards bodies, research institutes, governmental agencies and government officials.
I look forward to receiving your advice on these issues before the end of this meeting, and I hope to be present for most of the discussion. I am also available all week for any side meetings you may wish to hold.I will share your conclusions with my ITU colleagues, and in particular the Secretary-General and the Director of the Radio Bureau, as well as ISO and IEC and, following that, I will make a recommendation to the next TSAG and RAG meetings.
Let me again express my sincere appreciation to our moderators: Amy Marasco, Microsoft; Hung Ling, Alcatel Lucent; and Serge Raes, France Telecom/Orange, for their tremendous commitment to the work of this group and their impartial advice, and especially Serge for taking on the chairmanship.
In closing, I would like to encourage everyone to enter into the spirit that always prevails in ITU meetings – where we try to take a common sense pragmatic approach and willingness to compromise in order to reach a consensus, even if it does leave everyone equally unhappy rather than equally happy !
I now hand over the chairmanship as usual to Serge and wish you all good luck. TSB
