<< back to Industry Sectors

E-102 High Technology

The meeting began with introductory remarks from Art Nutter, ECIB Co-Chair. (Co-Chair Dana St. James was unable to attend the Annual meeting and thus, was not present at the ECIB meeting.) Paul Roberts was introduced as an ECIB member who contributed assistance to the ECIB co-chairs throughout the year, and who would be taking notes for preparing these meeting minutes.

A sign-in sheet, requesting members present at the ECIB meeting to list their Name, Company, and Email, was passed around and collected at the conclusion of the meeting. The list was retained by Paul Roberts, who provided a copy to Art Nutter and will forward the original to LES headquarters for use in distributing future communications throughout the year on matters related to the ECIB sector.

The following topics were discussed (and where relevant, similar topics addressed at different times during the meeting have been consolidated), and the resultant summary is outlined below.

LES web page

• Needs to be personalized and/or made easier to access
• Could benefit from additional content
• Should publish meeting minutes, presentations, participants contact information
• Should make an open call for links thought to be of interest to other LES members, and provide links through the LES website
• Should provide a "chat" forum to post questions or requests for information to ECIB and other LES members
• Should provide web links to the websites of professional organizations of interest to ECIB and other related LES groups; such websites might include links to ABA, AIPLA, AUTM, DVD, MPEG4, the LES Consultants and Brokers
• Directory, the companies of LES member, and a site called "techno-L" was mentioned as an interesting resource
• Should provide electronic content of all workshops and plenary sessions on the LES website (especially those presented at times in conflict with each other)
• Should extend the time period such online content would be provided
• Should electronically provide the audio content (which is currently provided by audio tape purchased at small fee)
• Sherri Holmes of LES headquarters may be able to assist in implementing some suggested web site improvements
• Call made for volunteers to:
  1. Add to web pages
  2. Contribute topics for workshops at upcoming meetings (e.g., Chicago, Washington, DC, Las Vegas)
  3. Participate as workshop presenters and Plenary session speakers; Obtain a higher level of speakers/contributor

Potential keynote speakers

1. Steve Case from AOL
2. Representative from Microsoft
3. Representative from Adobe

ECIB was requested by various members to:

• Become the pre-eminent standards body resource by branching out to various standards bodies (and providing access to the internet links of groups like): ITU, IEEE, IETF, TIA, VSIA, ICCAN, WIPO
• One member, Craig Smith of Sandia National Laboratories, expressed an interest in working in this area
• LES member Jim Sobieraj (unclear if present) was mentioned as being interested in or already conducting work in this area
• Conduct separate meetings throughout the year (apart from the regularly scheduled Annual and Seasonal meetings) in much the same way that the Energy and Health Care groups of LES do
• Consider hosting such meetings at local chapters in ECIB-rich areas such as Silicon Valley, Telecommunication
• Corridor in Texas, near the Optics and Internet companies in Maryland/Virginia
• Identify "what is a good deal?"
• Identify other "players" in the ECIB space, and determine how ECIB/LES can address their needs this came up in the context of comments made by an LES keynote speaker from IBM at the current Annual meeting suggesting that "there was nothing in LES for IBM"; other remarks might have been associated with Texas Instruments, however, both IBM and Texas Instruments are companies from which the ECIB would desire participation
• Better express the purpose of the ECIB, which might include:
  1. Facilitation of education in the licensing industry
  2. Identify what "works and doesn’t work" in the ECIB licensing area
  3. Identify a resource of licensing royalty rates
  4. What is ECIB’s "spin" on current issues so as to influence the direction taken by industry - establish a Steering
  5. Committee as a "think tank" of sorts
  6. Identify "best practices" in the industry and ensure they are followed
  7. How is IT and commerce affected by the ECIB members
  8. Domain name resolution
  9. Software and business method patents
  10. Semiconductor interests
  11. Identify Current developments in case law
• Gather potential ECIB members from other meetings such as DVD forum, MPEG4
• Take a proactive approach to engaging with existing members by
• Publishing a meeting guide of events potentially preferred by ECIB members
• Interface more with LESI members
• Develop topics
• Methods might include either soliciting topics all year long or considering old ECIB practices for obtaining workshop topics and presenters by establishing a cut-off date for topics to be 1 month from the annual meeting time and discuss topics during the annual meeting;
• Topics might include:
  1. RAMBUS
  2. Response to current national challenges such as information security, privacy of email, e-transactions, taxation on internet, Canadian government v. Bayer and fallout to ECIB
  3. Standardization issues
  4. Bio-informatics (representative from SRI was identified as a potential participant)
  5. Sensors and detectors (for anthrax, etc.)
  6. Bio-chips: marriage between the electronics and bio industries
  7. Conflict of patent lifetimes
  8. A primer on current technology and licensing issues (good for DC meeting)
  9. FAQs

Dana St. James and Art Nutter
Co-Chairs, ECIB

<  back to Professional Interest Committees