RE: letters of assurance

Oz,

According to the minutes, section 4, of the P1800 meeting in Frankfurt
7/1/04 (enclosed) the patent policy of the DASC was adopted by unanimous
vote which specifies "The WG shall require assurance from patent holders
in the form of sub clause 6 (a) of IEEE-SA Standards Board Bylaws"

Therefore I do not feel that your letter (enclosed) is conforming. I
suggest that wording in your letter be changed to conform to sub clause
(a) below rather than (b). [from IEEE-SA Standards Board Bylaws, section
6]

a) A general disclaimer to the effect that the patentee will not enforce
any of its present or future patent(s) whose use would be required to
implement either mandatory or optional portions of the proposed IEEE
standard against any person or entity complying with the standard; or

(b) a statement that a license for such implementation will be made
available without compensation or under reasonable rates, with
reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair
discrimination."

Regards,

  Victor

________________________________

From: Oz Levia [mailto:Oz.Levia@synopsys.com]
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 12:13 PM
To: Victor Berman
Cc: 'Srouji, Johny'
Subject: RE: letters of assurance

This from our legal

It was our intent for our letter to be conforming, if they feel it is
not we would appreciate if someone could provide a draft that they feel
does conform, but I believe it matches up to option (b).

The meat of our letter is (with bold for emphasis)

Synopsys may own patents or patent applications which apply to the
SystemVerilog specification that is submitted to the working group. If
implementation of an IEEE standard based on the SystemVerilog
specification requires the use of Synopsys patents, Synopsys will grant,
upon written request, a non-exclusive license under such patents on
reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

and (b):

(b) a statement that a license for such implementation will be made
available without compensation or under reasonable rates, with
reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair
discrimination."

-Oz.

-----Original Message-----
From: Victor Berman [mailto:vberman@cadence.com]
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 8:48 AM
To: Oz Levia
Subject: RE: letters of assurance

Oz,

Thank for the letter. This does not follow the section (a) of the IEEE
policy that we agreed to follow. Is that an oversight or the intention?

  Victor

"(a) A general disclaimer to the effect that the patentee will not
enforce any of its present or future patent(s) whose use would be
required to implement either mandatory or optional portions of the
proposed IEEE standard against any person or entity complying with the
standard; or

(b) a statement that a license for such implementation will be made
available without compensation or under reasonable rates, with
reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair
discrimination."

________________________________

From: Oz Levia [mailto:Oz.Levia@synopsys.com]
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 10:14 AM
To: Victor Berman
Cc: ieee1800@eda.org
Subject: RE: letters of assurance

This is what Synopsys provided.

-Oz.

-----Original Message-----
From: Victor Berman [mailto:vberman@cadence.com]
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 4:31 PM
To: Oz Levia
Subject: letters of assurance

Oz,

Would you be willing to send me a copy of the letters of assurance that
were sent to IEEE? I want to use that as a model for us to submit and
to recommend that all the companies including Verisity do the same.

 Victor