OAGi Working Group Meeting Guest-Participation Policy

Owned by Jim Wilson
Last updated: 2021-07-23
2 min read

This policy applies to all OAGi working groups, including IOF working groups.

This policy does not apply to non-working group meetings.

The OAGi Patent Policy and Standards Development Process are defined to ensure that intellectual property contributions to a working group may safely be incorporated into work products that OAGi releases. In order to accomplish this, intellectual property contributions may only be accepted from:

  1. Employees of organizations that have affirmatively joined1 the working group in which the intellectual property is being offered as a contribution.

  2. Primary-contact-designated agents (e.g., contractors) of organizations that have affirmatively joined1 the working group in which the intellectual property is being offered as a contribution.

  3. Individuals that have affirmatively joined1 the working group in which the intellectual property is being offered as a contribution.

  4. OAGi staff

  5. OAGi contractors

1Only OAGi members may affirmatively join a working group.

From time to time it may be useful to invite a guest to join an OAGi working group meeting. Reasons may include, but are not limited to:

  • The guest is an expert who is invited to present on a topic to the working group for the purpose of informing the working group participants.

  • The guest may be interested proposing that their organization affirmatively join the working group and would like to join a meeting or two to better understand the work and the working group dynamics.

  • For a limited time with respect to IOF working groups, a guest may join as their company (generally large companies) works out the legal and financial details related to the OAGi / IOF membership process.

In every case that a guest joins any working group meeting, the following requirements must be met:

  1. The working group chair must invite the guest to participate.

  2. Near the beginning of the meeting in which the guest is present, the working group chair must introduce the guest to the working group and inform the working group that it may not accept intellectual property contributions from the guest.

  3. The meeting minutes must state:
    The working group chair has invited [guest name] from [guest affiliation] to today’s meeting. The working group has been informed that it may not accept intellectual property contributions from [guest name].

Conversely guests and the organizations they represent are not bound by the OAGi Patent Policy or Standards Development Process.

https://oagi.org/pages/connect-membership