The Centre Daily carried a story that Intertrust Technologies has completed a patent licensing deal giving Motorola global rights "to practice Intertrust's broad inventions in trusted distributed computing and digital rights management. Motorola's license covers all products, including mobile and digital television devices."
Macrovision had announced acquisition of the BD+ technologies that are used in Blu-ray discs and systems to provide a programmable security layer. In reviewing the Cryptography Research Inc. (the creators of BD+/SPDC) web site, I observed that they still had a notice that they owned certain intellectual property relating to SPDC and that interested parties should contact them regarding licensing.
There's nothing wrong with this, but being curious, I asked (via email) Linda Quach, a press relations person, whether Macrovision had indeed acquired all rights, title, and interest in the SPDC/BD+ technologies. Here is the substantive portion of her answer (also via email):
I’ve confirmed with our product management team that we did in fact acquire all rights, title and interest to BD+/SPDC technologies.
We’re working on redesign the content on the Macrovision website to include the BD+ technology, and have asked CRI to continue to host this information for a little while longer while we work on completing our marketing materials, so that anyone interested in finding out more can still have access to this information. We’re working with CRI to ensure that all requests are appropriately handled.
Thanks for the quick response and clarification.
Rethink is a London based market research and consulting firm whose publications I've been reading for a while. In a word: smart.
Their article, "Will Adobe drive the biggest deployment of DRM clients in history?" is one of the few must read pieces I've seen in some time.
They suggest that DRM has helped substantially increase the value of Apple.
Instead [of Microsoft] it has been Apple that has built a multibillion dollar empire based on a locked DRM. The value of Apple when the company launched its iTunes Store was around $10 billion, whereas today, due almost entirely due to the lock in that the iPod’s Fairplay DRM gives Apple, the company is valued at well over $160 billion. It’s a real testament to the power of DRM.
We’re not saying that just anyone can use DRM to liven up its share price, but an original product with consumer appeal, launched with a DRM lock in can, in the right hands create $100 billion of wealth.
Well, maybe. We'll have to to wait a few quarters to see what free music does to Apple's bottom line. Since Apple continues to have both mindshare and marketshare, the answer may be that having established a dominant position, untying the music from the player won't matter. Game over.
More interesting is the main focus of the Rethink article on Adobe and on advertising-based business models:
“There is only so much you can do with content protection, because someone can always point a camera at the screen, play the video, and make a copy, but we try never to let anything be “seen” by the operating software, and keep it all hidden inside the player, to make it as tough to break as possible....”
The same protection goes for other types of advertising including overlay adverts and the banners that sit directly above the video playing area on the screen. Banners, like overlays can be timed to play at a particular moment in the video, change at certain intervals and repeat. The aim is that trying to stop them means that the video stops playing. Also the viewer can be customized by the content owner using the brands of any sponsor, or their own brand. At present this is all handcrafted by the content owner when he sets his business model and revenue rules, “We do not yet have a GUI for creative people to manage this,” admits Landwehr, “but of course it will come.”
A PC World article by IDG News' Elizabeth Montalbano gets the story right regarding Microsoft's recently issued watermarking patent.
Forensic digital watermarking technology, like the technology Microsoft has patented, doesn't encrypt files the way DRM technology does or prevent people from unauthorized use. However, it can be used to prove who owns the content of the digital file by encoding a file with a unique digital signature. That means illegally traded songs could be tracked back to the original purchaser, allowing authorities to identify illegal sharers and serving as a deterrent.
The technology could also be used to track files for royalty distribution.
According to Macrovision's most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, they have settled patent litigation with privately held InterTrust. The Macrovision patents involved include this one which they had acquired. Macrovision's 2nd Qtr 200710Q says (pages 14-15):
Continue reading "Macrovision and Intertrust Settle Patent Litigation" »
Information Week is quoting Linux creator Linus Torvalds as saying that
In a posting on the Linux kernel mailing list, Torvalds said the Free Software Foundation's position on Tivoization is one reason he won't license his Linux kernel under GPLv3. "The GPLv3 doesn’t match what I think is morally where I want to be," Torvalds wrote. "I think it is okay to control people's hardware, I do it myself," he continued....
He accused the Free Software Foundation leadership, which includes eccentric, MIT-trained computing whiz Richard Stallman, of injecting their personal morality into the laws governing open source software with the release of GPLv3. "Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate 'morality' with 'legality,' " Torvalds wrote.
Through a Free Software Foundation mailing list, I received a mailing from Richard Stallman on why upgrade to version 3 of the General Public License. As discussed here previously, this version of the GPL is extremely anti-patent. Stallman is the best spokesperson for his position:
Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like theNovell-Microsoft deal. Microsoft wants to use its thousands ofpatents to make GNU/Linux users pay Microsoft for the privilege, andmade this deal to try to get that. The deal offers Novell's customersrather limited protection from Microsoft patents.
Microsoft made a few mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, and GPLv3is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limitedpatent protection to the whole community. In order to take advantageof this, programs need to use GPLv3.
According to eWeek, developers don't want the GPLv3 to police patents or to prevent future deals such as the Microsoft-Novell deal. This according to a Microsoft-funded study available here. Quoting from the study:
While many developers cited displeasure with the patent element of the Novell-Microsoft deal, the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to restrict the use of modified open source software, or the enforcement of software patents, (all publicly by Stallman as drivers for the revision of the GPL) they did not believe it was the place of the GPLv3 or other licenses to prevent such deals or resolve such issues— “Restrictive licenses are not good for the community. I don’t want anybody telling me what I can do with my code.” They see the GPL as promoting one viewpoint about users’ rights at the expense of their own - “GPL is about freedom of code not freedom of choice... developer is forced to make it free.” They repeatedly expressed concern regarding whose freedoms were most important, users or developers, and whether “political views” were entering the license revision process. The GPLv3 was seen as extending restrictions on how people used software code to promote the agenda of the FSF – “I don’t want to take freedoms from my customers... new clauses in GPLv3 remove freedoms of how you can use the software. I don’t agree with that.” “Software licenses shouldn’t put restrictions on hardware vendors.”
Fortune Magazine has an article in which Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez assert that free and open source software ("FOSS") such as Linux infringe 235 Microsoft patents. More specifically,
[Gutierrez] says that the Linux kernel - the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware - violates 42 Microsoft patents. The Linux graphical user interfaces - essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up - run afoul of another 65, he claims. The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft Office, infringes 45 more. E-mail programs infringe 15, while other assorted FOSS programs allegedly transgress 68.
Another controversy worth watching.
Earlier in this series of blogicles regarding the 3rd draft of the GPLv3 open source license, attorney Ed Walsh cautioned those who are considering using this license should it become final while incorporating certain provisions of section 11 (Patents). These provisions are a response to the Microsoft-Novell deal regarding patent licenses and software distribution.
Others have weighed in with similar observations. The Association for Competitive Technology has published white papers extremely critical of the new draft. These publications provide a legal analysis of the relevant portions of section 11 of the latest GPLv3 draft. ACT has published Richard Wilder's white paper, "GPLv3: The Legal Risks of Overreaching for Third Party Patent Rights."
Wilder's bottom line is this:
Those participating in the drafting and consultation process, or that plan to use GPLv3 once it is issued, should give careful consideration to whether such amendments do more harm than good by selectively overreaching for third party patent rights. There is no issue with those who choose to develop and distribute under the GPL to commit their own copyrights and patent rights in their contributions to the program they are distributing. But it is quite another for the GPL to seek to reach out and attempt to force third parties to surrender patent rights that they hold based on work and investment unrelated to development of contributions to GPL code. Particularly when the terms of the GPL are revised selectively to target specific parties, undo their perfectly legal contracts, or forge a broad agreement not to do business with such parties, this calls into question the legitimacy and enforceability of the GPL, and unwittingly may create new liabilities for its drafters and users. It also is a direct attack on the freedom of developers and companies to work together - seeking to undo or frustrate efforts to build bridges between the two worlds of open source and proprietary software.
If paragraphs 4 and 5 are retained in the final draft, those intending to use the GPLV3 should get the advice of legal counsel before doing so and possibly incurring significant liabilities.
To say that the anti-Microsoft-Novell provisions of the draft GPLv3 are controversial is a major understatement. I asked Ed Walsh, an attorney at Wolf Greenfield & Sacks whose practice includes advising on issues relating to open source licensing, about paragraphs 4 and 5 of section 11 (Patents) of the GPLv3. Here's what Ed told me:
The anti-Microsoft/Novell clauses are different in kind than anything that has appeared before and require a new risk assessment. Rather than merely allocate rights, those clauses are intended to encourage active participation in disrupting an existing agreement and in general promote a boycott of buying patent licenses.
Those clauses flirt with conduct that would, in other contexts, be called "tortious interference with contract," "inducing infringement" and "an agreement in restraint of trade." Most for-profit companies would not allow their employees to make such agreements as part of a trade group or industry consortium, so the unintended, as well as the intended, consequences of these clauses should be given special attention.
As noted previously in this series, there are many other open source licenses that may be more appropriate than the GPLv3 in its current form. Anyone contemplating adopting GPLv3 should seek legal advise before doing so.
The latest discussion draft of the GNU General Public License has been strongly criticized for its position on the Microsoft-Novell deal in which Microsoft agreed not to assert whatever patent rights it might have. The Association for Competitive Technology has published white papers extremely critical of the new draft. These publications provide a legal analysis of the relevant portions of section 11 of the latest GPLv3 draft.
Richard Wilder and Noah Clements argue in GPLv3 is a Contract and Why it Matters that the GPLv3 draft contains provisions more like contract terms rather than provisions based on copyright law. Their detailed analysis is summed up this way:
Paragraph 4 of Section 11 is aimed squarely at Microsoft and states that a patent owner that grants a patent license that enables software covered by the GPLv3 to be used or conveyed is “automatically extended to all recipients of the covered work and works based on it.”1 The FSF recognizes that the GPL had no direct influence on Microsoft as they would not “convey” a work covered by the GPL. That is, Microsoft is not threatened by the loss of a license under the GPL if they do not comply with its requirements. Accordingly, the FSF drafted Paragraph 4 to require the automatic grant of a license to all recipients of a covered work if they “convey, or propagate by procuring conveyance of, a covered work.” The flaw in this provision is two-fold. First, Paragraph 4 is a contract term, not a license term. Because Microsoft and companies like them are not parties to the contract, they are not bound by it. Second, while aiming at Microsoft and the Microsoft-Novell agreement, the FSF has hit a much broader target that threatens the ability of the proprietary and open source communities to work together productively.
Those interested in the details and the specifics of their analysis can read the paper (6 pages).
I asked Ed Walsh, an attorney whose specialties include open source software licensing, about current discussion draft of the GPLv3 license. Ed is an attorney with well-respected IP law firm Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks. Here's what he told me:
A summary of the way this draft balances concerns of competing constituencies can be found in the words of the drafters themselves, who state:
“Software patenting is a harmful and unjust policy, and should be abolished.”
With this philosophical bent clearly evident, it is hard to detect anything that should make businesses that own patents more comfortable about using software covered by the GPL. Rather, it should raise concerns that GPL licensed code is incompatible with objectives of for-profit business, or at the least trigger an awareness that the rules of Open Source have changed and it is time to re-evaluate both decisions whether to use open source and practices around how it will be used.
The suggestion that the requirement to grant patent licenses has been limited by a "contribution based licensing" is misleading because "contributions" are defined in GPLv3 to include the entire work, unless the work conveyed is a verbatim copy of a work made by someone else. Anyone who obtains a copy of the program or any portion of it is licensed. The license even applies to patents not in existence or owned when the work is conveyed. Further, new definitions of a "covered work" and "conveyance" expand the reach of the GPL beyond software or software distribution and likewise expand the situations in which a patent license must be granted.
If the current draft becomes final without significant changes in section 11 (Patents), inventors, entrepreneurs, investors, and other interested parties should be wary of relying on GPLv3. There are, of course, other open source licenses besides the GPL, and concerned parties should probably evaluate these licenses as well if open source is a part of their business strategy.
Back in January, Ed gave a presentation on Open Source Software: Issues for Start-ups to the Boston Entrepreneurs' Network that surveys the kinds of issues that should be taken into account. For the avoidance of doubt, this presentation had in mind GPLv2, and not the current v3 draft.
The third discussion draft from the Free Software Foundation of the GNU General Public License v. 3 (GPLv3) has been out for a few weeks. This draft has ignited a firestorm of criticism by some who object to language in this draft intended to prevent deals such as that between Microsoft and Novell in which Microsoft agreed not to assert any patents it might have covering Suse Linux which Novell distributes under an open source license.
Paragraphs 4 and 5 of section 11 have drawn the most criticism (more Wednesday):
CNET reports that the next version of the General Public License v3 (GPLv3) from the Free Software Foundation is due out tomorrow.
The timing pushes back by about three months the original deadline of March for a new version of the license. One reason for the delay was the announcement of a patent deal between Microsoft and Linux seller Novell under which Microsoft agreed not to sue Novell Linux customers for patent infringement. The most recent draft wouldn't have prohibited releasing GPL software under such conditions, but FSF founder Richard Stallman said the group would find a way to prohibit it.
Stay tuned.
The US Patent Office
issues new patents on Tuesdays. Issued patents and published
applications may be early indicators of the kinds of issues being
addressed by inventors and/or the companies for whom they work.
Assigned to InterTrust, the first patent describes ways of retrofitting electronic appliances to accept different content formats. The second patent, also assigned to InterTrust, describes various back-end clearinghouse functions and systems.
Macrovision's attorneys have announced that Macrovision has won a patent interference proceeding before the US Patent and Trademark Office's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. A news article published in Portfolio Media's IP Law Bulletin [subscription required] identified one of the patents involved as 5,845,281 which was acquired by Macrovision. The InterTrust patent(s) and claims involved were not identified.
An interference proceeding determines which party was the first to invent. The winner then owns the inventions as described by the specific claims awarded by the USPTO in the interference.
Back in April, I noted that InterTrust had won a separate interference proceeding against Macrovision and their same patent, the "281" patent. News reports identified the InterTrust patent involved in that interference as Ginter, et al., 1999, but there were 6 divisionals that issued that year so it's not clear which claims are the focus of these litigations.
The abstract and claims for the "281" patent are as follows (long):
Digimarc announced today that Thomson (the European-based electronics company) has licensed Dagmar IP relating to watermarking. Terms were not announced. Digimarc says that it has "an extensive intellectual property portfolio, with more than 200 issued U.S. patents including more than 4,000 claims, and more than 400 pending patent applications in digital watermarking, personal identification and related technologies." It's unclear what proportion deal with watermarking.
Earlier I reported on the Harvard Law School conference on IP Law cosponsor by Wilmer Hale. Now the proceedings including the agenda, presentations, audio, and the Grokster decision are now online and available to all those interested.
Grokster.. So Who Won?
Moderator: Thomas P. Olson, Partner, Wilmer Hale
Panel:
William W. Fisher, Prof. of Law, HLS
Doug Lichtman, Prof. of Law, U. of Chicago
William F. Patry, partner, Thalen, Reid & Priest, LLP
Jeremy Williams, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.
(Paraphrasing, not quoting except where powerpoints wer distributed)
Background-Thomas Olson:
Sony BetaMax case (1984):
Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses."
Grokster won in the District Court and in the Ninth Circuit (3-0).
The Grokster Court (the Supremes) did not like Grokster: 9-0 against.
[The opinion can be download here.]
Did Grokster intend to induce infringement?
The record is replete with evidence that from the moment Grokster and StreamCast began to distribute their free software, each one clearly voiced the objective that recipients use it to download copyrighted works, and each took active steps to encourage infringement.
Grokster's Bad Intent - Key Factor #1
Three features of this evidence of intent are particularly notable. First, each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement. the market comprising former Napster users.
Grokster's Bad Intent - Key Factor #2: Technological Mandate to Avoid Infringement? Or, Never Mind
Second, the evidence of unlawful objective is given added significance by MGM's showing that neither company attempted to develop filtering tools or other mechanisms to diminish the infringing activity using their software. While the Ninth Circuit treated the defendant's failure to develop such tools as irrelevant because they lacked an independent duty to monitor their user's activity, we think this evidence underscores Grokster's and StreamCast's intentional facilitation of their user's infringement.
Grokster's Bad Intent - Key Factor #3: Tell me again how you make your money?
Third, there is a further complement to the direct evidence of unlawful objective. It is useful to recall that StreamCast and Grokster make money by selling advertising space, by directing ads to the screens of computers employing their software. As the record shows, the more the software is used, the more ads are sent out and the greater the advertising revenue becomes. Since the extent of the software's use determines the gain to the distributors, the commercial sense of their enterprise turns on high-volume use which the record shows is infringing.
This evidence alone would not justify an inference of unlawful intent, but viewed in the context of the entire record its import is clear.
The unlawful objective is unmistakable.
Today I'm at The Harvard Law School Conference on IP Law. I'll be blogging the morning sessions which are about to kick off.
The various welcoming speeches are underway. Elena Kagan, Dean, Harvard Law School.
(Paraphrasing selected comments, not quoting.)
Patent Litigation - A View From The Bench
Moderator: William F. Lee
Panel:
Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa, former patent examiner, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC),
Hon. Alan D. Lourie, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC),
Hon. Pauline Newman, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC),
Hon. Pattie B. Saris, US District Court, Massachusetts,
Hon. William Young, US District Court, Massachusetts
Some background:
Number of patent litigation cases filed has increased each of the past 4 years.
More than 70% of patent cases survive until a court action is taken, but only 15-18% see the pretrial phase. Only 4% are actually tried. 70% jury trials / 30% bench trials.
Median cost of litigating a patent case has jumped 33%; is now $2M on average.
Question posed: what change in the patent system would you most like to see?
Continue reading "Harvard Law School Conference On IP Law" »
An article on AppleInsider that was widely cited suggested that Apple may have to pay Microsoft patent royalties relating to the iPod interface. [For those interested,
I've put the abstracts and related information in a followup posting.]
It's way too early to get excited. As near as I can tell, neither patent has issued. In the US priority is given to "first to invent" rather than "first to file" which is the predominant standard elsewhere. Among the options open to Apple are an "interference proceeding" which is an administrative process at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that is invoked when two patents / applications claim the same inventions. One object of an interference is to determine who invented first. Although these proceedings are usually confidential, the results are occasionally made known. For example, in a totally unrelated interference proceeding, Macrovision acknowledged that InterTrust had won at least a portion of an interference .
Alternatively, Apple can move to have the Microsoft patent declared invalid by an appropriate court or through reexamination because, for example, relevant prior art was not cited by Microsoft to the USPTO, and that had it been cited, the patent would not have been granted. Greg Aharonian's posting on Dave Farber's IP list also addresses prior art issues.
Both strategies entail risk to Apple. The USPTO could hold that Microsoft invented first or a court could declare the Microsoft patent valid. Microsoft may have similar options should the Apple patent eventually issue.
Lastly, most large companies develop extensive patent portfolios so that in situations such as these, they can enter into cross licensing agreements.
NetNet: I seriously doubt that Apple will ever pay Microsoft a royalty nickel for the iPod interface, but stranger things have happened.
For those interested, the continuation of ths blogicle has the abstracts and related information for the two patents apparently in contention between Apple and Microsoft.
Continue reading "Apple and Microsoft Patent Applications" »
Is there a business for DRM providers? This is among the issues reported by
Under what conditions would patents rather than copyrights be applied to literary works? Let me suggest the answer is never. But Richard Stallman has written what I believe is a reductio ad adsurdum argument against software patents. Stallman asserts that if patents could be applied to literary works then the great novels of French literature might never have been written.
The silliness of Stallman's argument is revealed by a Gedanken experiment of sorts: Imagine that copyright were to be abolished?
How does that help authors? Or publishers?
Various publications are reporting that Microsoft is developing a P2P application not unlike BitTorrent and the less well known Kontiki. This article in PCPRO (UK) is typical:
Software giant Microsoft is developing an alternative to BitTorrent, the high-speed p2p software driving the sharing of video through broadband connections. The twist is that with the Microsoft version, code-named Avalanche, downloading will not be possible without a 'publisher's certificate'. In other words, it will have built in DRM technology.
In the late '80s and early '90s, InterTrust founder Victor Shear had the vision to see that the world would have to become P2P. There were too many advantages. And rights management would have to be P2P rather than client/server as well.
Open Democracy has an article with a perspective on the recent WIPO meetings reported earlier on this site here.
According to this press release, Macrovision has disclosed an adverse ruling regarding the priority of an InterTrust patent (Ginter, et al.) over claims in one of Macrovision's patent (Benson). The release says in part:
In a related action, the United States Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences issued a ruling on April 11, 2005 that was adverse to Macrovision in the Ginter v. Benson Patent Interference which is being litigated between Macrovision and InterTrust Technologies Corporation. The ruling concluded that certain of InterTrust's patent claims have priority over the Macrovision claims; however, this is an ongoing process with other portions of the interference action still under review by the Panel. The InterTrust interference action has no bearing on patents outside the U.S. and the essential international DRM patent applications mentioned above are proceeding to issuance in Europe and Japan, unaffected by the outcome of the U.S. patent interference action.
Sounds like the MPEG LA and the handset vendors are off and running, according to this release.
MPEG LA announced today that the initial group of OMA DRM 1.0 essential patent holders have revised the terms of a joint patent portfolio license to be offered by MPEG LA for use of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DRM 1.0 specification. The group consists of ContentGuard Holdings, Inc., Intertrust Technologies Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., and Sony Corporation. The revisions are responsive to feedback from the market following MPEG LA's announcement of proposed license terms on January 6, 2005
Continue reading "OMA DRM Patent Holders Revise Terms of MPEG LA License" »
Dan Farber has blogged Larry Lessig's Keynote speech at the Open Source Business Conference. The whole blogicle is worth a read.
Snippet:
The issues Lessig raises have more to do with fostering an environment where the threat of lawsuits doesn't stifle innovation and create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Digital rights management and the rights of copyright holders also part of the larger picture. Linux has proven so far that some legal threats (SCO) and market dominators (Microsoft) aren't enough to squash free and open source software efforts. Many companies are building proprietary value, hybrid solutions on top of open source software components. Microsoft is increasingly competing with Linux on the merits of the products, along with vendor-paid research.
According to a press release issued by ContentGuard Holdings [links to US issued added],
ContentGuard Holdings, Inc., a leading developer of digital rights management (DRM) intellectual property, announced today that it has recently added nine new DRM patents to its broad, worldwide patent portfolio. Three were granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, two each were granted by the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office, and one each were granted by the patent offices of Australia and Taiwan.
The licensing royalty dispute regarding patents relating to DRM for mobile applications continues, this according to a press release issued by the GSM Association (GSMA). Compare with this earlier and related story.
The Board of the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for the world's GSM operator community that serves more than 1.3 billion mobile telecommunications users, has called for an immediate review of the current licensing program proposed by MPEG LA and the companies involved in this patent pool, for use of the Open Mobile Alliance's (OMA) Digital Rights Management (DRM) 1.0 standard.
Continue reading "GSMA Weighs In on MPEG LA Licensing Fees" »
The Mobile Entertainment Forum issued a statement on behalf of its members that is, it would appear, an element of a public negotiation strategy regarding a private agreement. Fascinating.
The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) today announced that, following in-depth consultation with its members, it has issued a statement regarding the licensing program proposed by MPEG LA for Mobile Digital Rights Management (Mobile DRM) on behalf of the essential patent holders of OMA DRM V1.
MEF Statement on MPEG LA licensing program for OMA DRM V1
As already announced on February 14, 2005, the Mobile Entertainment Forum fully supports the aims of the Open Mobile Alliance (OM