Quality Assurance Working Group - IPR

Specifications published by the Group

The following is the list of specifications produced by the Quality Assurance Working Group that have associated disclosures obligations, and possible licensing obligations under the W3C Patent Policy.

Documents under the W3C Patent Policy

Document	Patent Disclosure	Patent Exclusion
QA Framework: Test Guidelines	disclose	exclude
QA Framework: Specification Guidelines	disclose	exclude

Documents not/no longer under the W3C Patent Policy

Document	Patent Disclosure	Patent Exclusion
QA Framework: Operational Examples & Techniques	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)
The QA Handbook	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)
Variability in Specifications	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)
Test Metadata	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)

Patent Disclosures and Claim Exclusions

This section summarizes patent disclosures by participants in W3C's Quality Assurance Working Group as required by section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

W3C takes no position regarding either:

• the validity or scope of any intellectual property right or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology, or
• the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available from those not participating in this group.

Where disclosure is required by a W3C Member, the AC Representative makes the disclosure.

Anyone else may also make a disclosure.

Known Disclosures

No patent disclosures have been made for any specifications of this group.

How to Make a Patent Disclosure

W3C Members and Invited Experts (including those not participating in this group) wishing to disclose a patent for any specification produced by the Quality Assurance Working Group should use the Quality Assurance Working Group patent disclosure form.

Disclosures from the general public should be sent to the W3C Staff.

For specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, parties that commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms are not required to disclose patents. Any party (not just the Working Group Participants) may commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms and may do so by following the instructions in the next section.

Claim Exclusions

Only Quality Assurance Working Group participants may exclude patent claims concerning specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, per section 4 of the W3C Patent Policy. To make an exclusion, participants should use the Quality Assurance Working Group patent claim exclusion form, but only after first disclosing the patent.

Exclusion Opportunities

The Patent Policy FAQ provides detailed information about exclusion opportunities, that is, when a Working Group Participant can exclude a patent claim.

Each exclusion opportunity has a duration. See section 4.1 of the W3C Patent Policy for information on how the exclusion deadline is calculated.

At each exclusion opportunity, Participants may exclude patent claims with respect to a body of text. The Exclusion Draft is the reference body of text for the current exclusion opportunity.

Note: At each new exclusion opportunity (e.g., in the case of a second Candidate Recommendation Snapshot), exclusions are only with respect to differences since the previous reference body of text. These differences may be less than an entire document, and the summary below does not address that granularity. Also, in some edge cases (discussed in the FAQ), Participants, depending on when they joined the Working Group, will have different Exclusion Drafts; the summary below does not reflect this case.

Exclusion Opportunities

No current exclusion opportunities.

Additional Licensing Information

As described in section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy:

All Working Group participants are encouraged to provide a contact from which licensing information can be obtained and other relevant licensing information. Any such information will be made publicly available along with the patent disclosures for the Working Group in question.

Patent holders may:

1. Provide additional licensing information for documents produced by this Working Group
2. Provide the same additional licensing information for all documents with associated licensing obligations produced by this Working Group, or
3. Provide additional licensing information for any W3C document with associated licensing obligations produced by any W3C Working Group under the W3C Patent Policy.

Such licensing information should be sent to the W3C Staff.

Please recall that, per section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy, a W3C Royalty-Free license:

may not impose any further conditions or restrictions on the use of any technology, intellectual property rights, or other restrictions on behavior of the licensee, but may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: choice of law and dispute resolution.