Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards

PETROLEUM CONVENIENCE ALLIANCE FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS

SUMMARY OF ANTITRUST AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY POLICIES

TO:  Technical Committee Chairs

NOTE: At the request of the PCATS Board of Directors, this summary has been prepared by counsel to assist you as a Technical Committee Chair in ensuring that your meetings comply with the PCATS Antitrust and Intellectual Property (IP) Policies, as adopted in the PCATS Operating Procedures and Guidelines.  You should always have a copy of that document at their meetings, so that any Member with questions may be allowed to review the applicable language in the Policies.  Specific questions that remain should be addressed to PCATS Counsel.

Antitrust Policy

Article VII of the Operating Procedures and Guidelines is the Antitrust Policy.  As Committee Chair, you should ALWAYS begin every meeting by advising Members and Participants that PCATS adheres to a policy of taking all steps to comply with federal and state antitrust laws.  You should remind them that competitors in the room must not discuss specific topics, including pricing, allocation of territories, and refusals to deal with someone.  If you, or any Member or participant, believe that the discussion is turning into one of those forbidden topics, you should cut off that line of discussion.  You should also allow any Member or participant to raise a point of concern that the discussion is veering off into a forbidden area, and that point should be noted in the minutes.  If you are not able to take reasonable minutes, someone should be appointed to take official notes of the meeting, so that minutes can be prepared afterwards.  It is through such minutes that PCATS can verify that no one discussed any topic that would violate the antitrust laws.

IP Policy

Article V of the Operating Procedures and Guidelines is the IP Policy.  Again, you should begin every meeting by giving Members and participants a summary of the IP Policy (or provide an opportunity to review it) so that each person in the room is aware of his/her obligations.  The IP Policy applies to Members and participants alike.  The most critical part of the Policy for Technical Committee meetings is the requirement that your committee attendees must disclose the existence of any IP (patent, patent application or copyright) owned by their companies that might be in conflict with any standard/ implementation guide being considered by your Committee.  Usually, such notice would be made by the Member/participant in writing, along with a statement that the company is willing to make the portion of the IP involved in a proposed standard uniformly available to PCATS through a royalty-free or reasonably non-discriminatory license.  In order to provide PCATS with sufficient information about the patent or patent application so that an informed decision can be reached by other Members/participants whether to proceed with development of a standard that contains some patented/copyrighted element.  PCATS has various options with respect to how to proceed, but it is most important that disclosure of IP be respected so that PCATS does not waste many months pursuing a standard that eventually might not be adopted because it would necessitate Members paying a royalty.  Essentially, what is disclosed should be the patent (if it has issued) or that portion of a patent application containing the relevant element that is being considered in a standard, or the existence of a copyright. 

If questions arise that cannot be answered by reference to this summary of the IP Policy itself, please address them to PCATS Counsel as soon as practicable.