The financial impact of the Internet of Things on the
global economy will be significantly affected by interoperability. A 2015
McKinsey Global Institute report indicated that, “[on] average, interoperability is necessary to create
40 percent of the potential value that can be generated by the IoT in various
settings […] Interoperability is required to unlock more than $4 trillion per
year in potential economic impact for IoT use in 2025, out of a total impact of
$11.1 trillion across the nine settings that McKinsey analyzed.”
However, at present, there is a lack of consensus
between standards organizations and industry stakeholders as to even the most
basic technical standards and protocols that apply to how devices communicate.
Characterized as a “standards war” between technology groups, companies have competing incentives. While all vendors share an interest in aligned standards that promote IoT development and interoperability, individually some companies seek the perceived competitive and economic advantages of building proprietary systems based on proprietary standards and protocols (or so-called “walled-gardens”).
Characterized as a “standards war” between technology groups, companies have competing incentives. While all vendors share an interest in aligned standards that promote IoT development and interoperability, individually some companies seek the perceived competitive and economic advantages of building proprietary systems based on proprietary standards and protocols (or so-called “walled-gardens”).
The lack of a uniform standard that applies across
devices and networks means that we lack any universally adopted set of
semantics. As a result, without clear definition, opportunities for
misunderstandings abound. We start then with the definition of two key
concepts: the definition of the Internet of Things or “IoT,” and the definition
of interoperability as applied to the Internet of Things.
Internet of
Things
The term “Internet of Things” is arguably a misnomer
in today’s rapidly changing technical environment. The term has two components,
both of which are somewhat misleading: “Internet” and “things.”
The reference to the Internet is misleading because
the Internet is not the only networking protocol over which devices
communicate. While the Internet is a powerful enabler of the broad adoption of
connected devices, the networks and communications protocols that support our
connected world are far more diverse and continue to proliferate.
The term “things,” while not limiting in and of
itself, is vague at best. In this article, when we refer to “things,” we intend
to encompass all of the types of objects that have the ability to connect and
communicate, whether those objects be sensors, computers or everyday things.
The ability to connect with other objects and communicate data makes the object
“smart.”
Interoperability
Interoperability is another term that is often
articulated as being central to the growth and success of the products and
services that leverage the IoT. While interoperability is widely believed to be
essential, defining what is meant by interoperability is difficult, since
interoperability can mean something different when applied to the different
parts of the technology stack that comprises the IoT, than when applied to the
data itself that is communicated and processed through that technology stack.
The European Research Cluster on the Internet of Things has proposed the following definition of interoperability:
“the ability of two or more systems or components to
exchange data and use information.”
The following definition of interoperability fleshes
out some of the concepts that follow in this article.
The ability of objects or devices, whether they be
sensors, computers or other everyday things, to connect with each other and communicate
data in a form and format that can be understood and processed by other persons
or entities and is agnostic as to the hardware or software on which the data is
to be further processed and stored.
These definitions are not bulletproof. Rather, they
provide fodder for discussion and debate about the extent to which
interoperability is desirable within the context of the IoT.
One area of potential confusion in regard to
interoperability is distinguishing between the technology and systems required to
exchange data from the technology and systems required for the use of that same
data. Communications protocols and standards can be leveraged to ensure
interoperability across heterogeneous hardware and software systems and
platforms. This sort of technical interoperability, however, will not ensure
that the data itself that is carried through networked layers of the technology
stack are in a form and format that allows for transmission across systems.
To
support this sort of interoperability, agreed frameworks for syntax and the
encoding of data (sometimes referred to as “syntactical interoperability”) is
needed. Finally, optimally systems will be designed over time that support the
ability of users to obtain a common understanding of the information communicated
across networked solutions that span diverse geographic and cultural
boundaries. This sort of interoperability is referred to as “semantic
interoperability.” For organizations that use different technology across
different cultures in different parts of the world, all three of the above
types of interoperability may be desired.
Benefits of
Industry Standards
Standards can offer a number of benefits. Standards
can provide assurance to their members that if they implement the standards,
their products and services will continue to operate within specified
parameters with each other. Technical interoperability is often a goal of
industry standards. The broader the set of specified hardware, software and
communications protocols a standard supports, the broader the interoperability
it may enable.
Choosing to develop in accordance with an industry
technical standard can also provide a level of certainty with respect to
intellectual property (“IP”) infringement, albeit not blanket protection. This
protection arises because most standards bodies require that participants who
contribute to the standard agree to license certain of their IP on pre-defined
terms. The scope of the IP rights captured and the terms on which that IP is
licensed, however, vary from standard to standard and are based on the
participant’s level of involvement and contribution. High-level descriptions of
the type of license that applies to some of the most well-known IoT standards
is included below, to the extent information about the terms is publicly
available.
When there is a proliferation of competing standards
that cover the same or similar subject matter, however, the standards have the
potential to overlap or conflict. Without coordination as to what options or
services products or components that comply with the standard will implement,
lack of interoperability will result. This has led some industry observers to
suggest that broader collaboration between standard-setting organizations, or
even consolidation of various IoT standards, could be beneficial in the longer
term.
A
Business Case for Interoperability
Despite these early movements, whether and the extent
to which the various standards bodies will coordinate or consolidate is an open
point. Some question whether such consolidation is necessary or even feasible,
because interoperability takes place at different layers within the
communications protocol stack among IoT systems and devices. Others emphasize
that true interoperability requires any IoT device to be able to speak the same
language, and connect and share information with other devices and systems,
irrespective of platform or operating system (“OS”), and that this requires one
de facto protocol.
The time and investment required by industry stakeholders to participate
in a range of standardization efforts is significant, but there is likely to be
overlap and even conflicts between some of the standardization protocols. The
lack of a collaborative effort to produce a uniform standard could produce conflicting
protocols, delay product development and prompt fragmentation across IoT products and services. Such a fragmented array of proprietary
IoT technical standards will impede value for users and industry.
Central challenges raised by the proliferation of IoT
interoperability standards include the following:
·
Device manufacturers perceive a market advantage in
establishing a proprietary ecosystem of compatible IoT products that limit
interoperability to those devices within the manufacturer’s product line. By
maintaining the proprietary nature of these systems, developers exert more
control over the user experience. These “walled gardens” are opposed by
interoperability supporters as impediments to user choice because they arguably
deter users from changing to alternative products. Some also argue that they
create impediments to innovation and competition, limiting competitors’ ability
to develop new products compatible with the standardized infrastructure.
·
One of IoT’s primary attractions is the ability of
connected devices to transmit and receive data to and from cloud services,
which in turn may perform powerful analytic functions. The lack of a
consistent, platform and OS-agnostic standard governing the collection,
processing and sharing of such data may inhibit the ability of users to access
the originating data, move to other service providers or perform their own
analyses.
·
Device manufacturers perceive a market advantage in
establishing a proprietary ecosystem of compatible IoT products that limit
interoperability to those devices within the manufacturer’s product line. By
maintaining the proprietary nature of these systems, developers exert more
control over the user experience. These “walled gardens” are opposed by
interoperability supporters as impediments to user choice because they arguably
deter users from changing to alternative products. Some also argue that they create
impediments to innovation and competition, limiting competitors’ ability to
develop new products compatible with the standardized infrastructure.
·
One of IoT’s primary attractions is the ability of
connected devices to transmit and receive data to and from cloud services,
which in turn may perform powerful analytic functions. The lack of a
consistent, platform and OS-agnostic standard governing the collection,
processing and sharing of such data may inhibit the ability of users to access
the originating data, move to other service providers or perform their own
analyses.
·
The lack of an existing and proven standard that IoT
device manufacturers may use to assess technical design risks in the
development process increases development costs.
·
In the absence of standardization, developers face the
behemoth task of developing integrations with legacy systems, and end users
will be faced with the challenge of configuring multiple individual devices
across a range of standards. In addition, product developers may be dissuaded
from developing new products due to uncertainty as to compliance with future
standards.
·
End users may be discouraged from purchasing products
where there is integration inflexibility, configuration complexity or concern
over vendor lock-in, or where they fear products may be obsolete due to
changing standards. The complications posed by a lack of uniform connectivity
standards for product development and industry growth are evident in the
competing, incompatible standards for devices with a low-range and
medium-to-low data rate (i.e., ZigBee, Bluetooth and LTE Category 0).
· Lack of reference and architectural models that take
into account the various needs for interoperability and standardization may
also have adverse consequences for the networks with which IoT devices connect,
since poorly designed sensor networks may use disproportionate bandwidth, and
be greedy consumers of available power.
In contrast, well-defined device interoperability standards may
encourage innovation as disruptive technologies emerge, provide efficiencies
for IoT device manufacturers and generate economic value as “things” become
cheaper, smarter and easier to use. Barriers to entry may be lowered. Moreover,
interoperability facilitates the ability of users to select the devices best
suited to the user’s needs in an environment where different devices can share
and communicate data between each other. Nevertheless, such arguments remain
counterbalanced by companies’ perceived competitive and economic advantages of
building proprietary systems for market domination in the IoT.
The
IoT Standards Smorgasboard
IoT standards, including those that adopt protocols
that specify communication details for IoT devices, are central to the
interoperability discussion for the IoT. A number of standards bodies,
consortiums and alliances are currently working on IoT standards issues. Below
is a non-exhaustive list of some of the current major players in the
development of standards, the covered products and services, and the licensing
approaches that apply to the IP that is used by products and services that
implement these standards.
Standards that offer limited protection from
infringement of the IP rights of their contributors can lead to legal and
business uncertainty. Legal uncertainty can arise because of the lawsuits for
infringement that may be brought by contributors who have promoted the adoption
of features or works into the standard that if used without a license, would
infringe their patents or copyrights. There may be business uncertainty because
companies lack predictability regarding what the ultimate cost of implementation
of the standard may be should contributors charge for licenses to IP required
to implement the standard.
Central to this debate is what the appropriate
licensing terms should be for contributors to a particular standard. As seen in
the telecommunications industry, standardized licensing terms can affect the
way an industry evolves: licensing terms that are overly aggressive or demand
too much of a participant will be eschewed in favor of more acceptable models.
This alert examines the fragmented environment of IoT technical standards and
analyzes the differences between the proposed licensing models, exemplifying
how various standard bodies are attempting to reconcile the issue.
Open Interconnect Consortium
|
|
Standard
|
IoTivity
|
History, Scope and Members
|
The Open
Interconnect Consortium (“OIC”)
launched in July 2014, backed by such vendors as Intel, Samsung Electronics,
Cisco, GE Software, Atmel, Dell, Honeywell, IBM, Mediatek, ZTE, Acer,
Broadcom, Asus, National Instruments and many others. The OIC’s stated
focus is “defining a common communications framework based on industry
standard technologies to wirelessly connect and intelligently manage the flow
of information among personal computing and emerging IoT devices, regardless
of form factor, OS, or service provider.”
In early 2015, the OIC released
a specification called IoTivity, an open source framework implementing the
OIC Standards for device-to-device connectivity. Operating on a
constrained application protocol (CoAP), IoTivity has limited platform
support, but is focused on security, simplicity and rapid development.
The OIC’s open source standards cover device discovery, communication, data
exchange and other functions in multiple domains, including home automation,
automotive, enterprise, health care and industrial scenarios, with an initial
focus on smart home and office solutions.
|
License Approach
|
Under the
OIC’s Intellectual Property Rights Policy, the OIC’s licensing policies
contain a “RAND-Z”
(or “FRAND”)
provision that requires participating companies to offer a zero-royalty,
reasonable and non-discriminatory license to their code for member
organizations. In addition, each member must agree that it will not
seek to enforce its IP rights against another member if reasonable and
non-discriminatory compensation (“RAND”) for
practice of IP rights can otherwise be obtained. Further, each member and its affiliates must
grant the OIC a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable,
sublicensable, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce, create
derivatives, distribute, display, perform and edit the member’s contributions
for the purposes of developing, publishing and distributing: the final
specifications; products incorporating compliant portions based on the
specifications; and submissions to an approved standards development
organization. Subject to the member’s retention of its copyright in the
individual contribution, OIC owns all rights in the compilation of
contributions forming the final specifications and related works. Code
contributions under the reference implementation, IoTivity, are licensed
under the Apache 2.0 license.
|
AllSeen Alliance
|
|
Standard
|
AllJoyn
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Launched in
December 2013, AllJoyn is an open-source software system intended to enable
compatible smart devices, irrespective of OS and network protocols, to find
and coordinate with each other. The project was developed by Qualcomm
Innovation Center and is now a collaborative open source project of the
AllSeen Alliance. Members of the Alliance include Qualcomm, The Linux
Foundation, Cisco Systems, Arcelik A.S., Canon, Electrolux, Haier, LG,
Microsoft, Panasonic, Philips, Qeo, Sharp, Silicon Image, Sony, Asus,
AT&T, Cisco, Honeywell, HTC, IBM, Lenovo, Symantec, TrendMicro, Vodafone
and many others.
The open source AllJoyn
protocol enables device manufacturers to create custom apps for integrating
devices onto a Wi-Fi network. Products that use AllJoyn include
Panasonic’s multi-room audio systems and LG’s smart TVs; in November 2014,
Microsoft announced it was building the AllJoyn framework into Windows
10. In early January 2016, the AllSeen Alliance announced its first
update to the AllJoyn Gateway Agent Plan, originally released on April 19,
2015. This extension of the AllJoyn framework provides a standard and
secure method to remotely access and manage IoT devices and applications via
external/cloud networks and the Internet. This moves the IoT from a
series of Internet-connected gadgets into a manageable system.
|
License Approach
|
Unlike the
OIC, AllJoyn does not contain a RAND-Z licensing term—a key difference
between the organizations. Members of the AllSeen Alliance and all
non-members that contribute to the Alliance must pledge not to bring a claim
of infringement of the contributor’s pledged patent claims against any entity
that uses, sells, offers for sale, leases, licenses, imports, distributes or
otherwise exploits an official code release by the Alliance that meets the
Alliance’s certification requirements. Pledged patent claims are those
that are directly infringed by the use, sale or other disposition of the code
that is contributed by the contributor alone and not in combination with any
other contribution. The agreement does not extend to contributions made
by others, any modification of the contributor’s contribution or combination
of the contributor’s contribution with anything else. This addition to
the Alliance’s patent policy was introduced in January 2015; previously,
AllSeen’s IP policies had covered only copyright. Code released by the
Alliance for the AllJoyn framework is licensed to users under the ISC
License, which grants permission to use, copy, modify and/or distribute the
software for any purpose with or without fee, provided that a copyright notice
appears in all copies. Contributors are required to enter into a
Contributor Agreement pursuant to which contributors can elect either to
assign to the Alliance the copyright rights and interests in the contribution
subject to a license back to exploit the work, or to grant to the Alliance a
non-exclusive, broad copyright license.
|
Thread Group |
|
Standard
|
Thread
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Thread
Group’s “Thread”, an IP-based wireless networking protocol, is an initiative
launched by Google’s Nest Labs, Samsung Electronics, ARM Holdings, Freescale
Semiconductor, Silicon Labs, Big Ass Fans and Yale Locks & Hardware.
Thread relies on a low-power
radio protocol called IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks
(“6LowPAN”). Unlike Wi-Fi, which sends large quantities of data and
consumes large amounts of power, Thread sends small amounts of data and
consumes very little power. The protocol gives each device an IPv6
address and utilizes mesh networks that scale to hundreds of devices without
a single point of failure (i.e., without the need for a hub device), and
involve “banking-class” encryption. According to Thread Group, as the
technology only defines networking, in theory, high-layer standards such as
AllJoyn or IoTivity, which still utilize Wi-Fi or Bluetooth networks, could
be used in Thread-enabled products.
|
License Approach
|
Like OIC,
patents that are necessarily infringed by required portions of the final
Thread specification are licensed on a perpetual, royalty-free basis (“RAND-RF”).
Each participant must grant (a) the Group and each participant a worldwide,
irrevocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free copyright license
to reproduce, create derivative works, distribute, display and perform (with
the right to sublicense) each final Thread specification for the purposes of
developing, publishing and distributing the final specification and related
materials, as well as for promotional materials. Subject to each
member’s retention of the copyright in its individual contribution, each
member must convey to the Group a non-exclusive, undivided and equal ownership
interest in any copyrights contributed to the final Thread specification,
deemed “ownership of a collective work” under 17 USC 201(c). This
copyright license survives any withdrawal from membership of the granting
participant from the Thread Group.
|
ZigBee Alliance
|
|
Standard
|
ZigBee
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Established
in 2002, the ZigBee Alliance is a non-profit association of 452 members,
including ARM, Belkin, AT&T, Bosch, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Emerson,
Huawei and many others.
The ZigBee Alliance’s standard,
ZigBee, is a common wireless language that everyday devices utilize to
connect to one another. In December 2015, the ZigBee Alliance announced
that its members had ratified the ZigBee 3.0 specification, which includes a
common application library that unifies the various application-specific
versions of its wireless specification into a single standard. Millions
of ZigBee-enabled products exist on the market today, including in smart
homes, connected lighting, and the utility industry.
|
License Approach
|
Under the
ZigBee Alliance’s Intellectual Property Rights Policy, each ZigBee standard
is made available on a RAND basis: each contributing member must grant to
each other member a non-exclusive license without a right to sublicense, to
make, have made, use, import, sell, offer to sell, license, promote or
otherwise dispose of the resulting product or technology. The license
is granted only under claims of the contributor’s patents that cover or
directly relate to one or more of the specifications if: (1) the patent claim
is necessarily infringed by the specification, (2) no commercially reasonable
non-infringing implementation of the specification exists, and (3) such
infringement is necessary to meet the implementation requirements of the
specifications. The Alliance charges no royalty for any use of the
standards, and RAND terms are available to members and non-members.
|
AVnu Alliance
|
|
Standard
|
AVB/TSN
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Launched in
August 2009 by founding members that included Broadcom, Cisco Systems and
Intel, the AVnu Alliance is a consortium of automotive and consumer
electronics companies collaborating to establish and certify the
interoperability of open Audio Video Bridging (“AVB”) standards.
The Alliance focuses on
“creating an interoperable ecosystem servicing the precise timing and low
latency requirements of diverse applications using open standards through
certification.”
|
License Approach
|
Under the
AVnu Alliance Intellectual Property Rights Policy, when a member or its
affiliates make a contribution to a specification, the member and its
affiliates must grant to other participants and their affiliates, on a RAND
basis, a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, irrevocable
worldwide license (with or without compensation at the member and its
affiliates’ option) under certain of its patent claims that are necessarily
infringed by compliance with the final specification and that are within a
specified “scope” limited to functionality that enables products to
interoperate, interconnect or communicate. The license grants the right to
make, have made, use, import, offer to sell, lease, sell and otherwise
distribute only those portions of products that implement and are compliant
with the relevant portions of the final specification and are within the
bounds of the above “scope.” The Intellectual Property Rights Policy also
contains a broad license grant by members with respect to the member’s
copyrights in any contributed materials. A range of AVnu-certified
products are available across automotive, consumer and industrial electronics
markets.
|
Industrial Internet Consortium |
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Founded in
March 2014 by General Electric, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel and AT&T, the
Industrial Internet Consortium (“IIC”) focuses
on industrial applications of the IoT and “setting the architectural
framework for the industrial internet.” The IIC has grown to more than 100
members, including Microsoft, Samsung and Huawei Technologies.
The IIC reports that it will not develop a set of
standards but will work with standards bodies to ensure technologies work
together across business sectors and to identify, assemble and promote best
practices. In particular, the IIC wants to encourage coordination among
industries within which IoT and the older machine-to-machine (“M2M”)
technologies have been developed in relative isolation. That will
involve defining requirements for standards, designing reference
architectures and frameworks necessary for interoperability, and creating new
industry cases and testbeds for real-world applications.
|
License Approach
|
The IIC’s
intellectual property policy incorporates a broad copyright license, but
unlike many of the other standards initiatives, lacks any policy with respect
to the grant of rights under contributor patents that may be infringed by
their contributions. This may be in part due to the fact that the IIC
is not establishing a standard itself, but rather working to encourage
coordination across standards.
|
OneM2M |
|
Standard
|
OneM2M
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Established
in July 2012 by a consortium of ICT standards development bodies, OneM2M is a
standard that provides a common M2M service layer that can be embedded within
various hardware and software to connect IoT devices. The partnership
currently has 216 participating partners and members, including
Alcatel-Lucent, Adobe, AT&T, BT, Cisco, Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom, IBM,
Intel, Samsung, Sierra Wireless and Telefonica. OneM2M has two types of
members: Partner Type 1 comprises membership organizations themselves, and
Partner Type 2 comprises members who are also participants in a Partner Type
1 organization or have otherwise had their IPR policies vetted by OneM2M at
the time they joined. Ultimately, each partner must have agreed to an
IPR policy that is compliant with the OneM2M IPR principles.
|
License Approach
|
OneM2M’s
partnership agreement states that the copyright in technical specifications
and reports are jointly owned by the Type 1 partners. Trademark usage
is left to agreement among the Type 1 partners. With respect to
patents, the organization’s IPR principles state that members must comply
with a FRAND IP rights licensing regime.
|
Wi-Fi Alliance |
|
Standard
|
Wi-Fi
HaLow
|
History, Scope and Members
|
In early
January 2016, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced its new IoT specification, Wi-Fi
HaLow, based on the pending IEEE 802.11ah specification, which is claimed to
double the distance and cut the power consumption of traditional Wi-Fi.
The Wi-Fi Alliance, which has about 700 vendors as members, expects to launch
a certification process for Wi-Fi HaLow products in 2018; however, it is
anticipated that products supporting the Wi-Fi HaLow specification will enter
the market earlier.
|
License Approach
|
The IEEE
requires IEEE members to license patents to users of the IEEE standards on
FRAND terms. The IEEE IPR policy requires the licensing of patent
claims the practice of which is necessary to implement either mandatory or
optional portions of the standard when if, at the time of the standard’s
approval, there was no commercially and technically feasible non-infringing
alternative means of implementation. The rights extend to any Compliant
Implementation, which is defined as any product (including any component,
sub-assembly or end product) or service that conforms to any mandatory or
optional portion of a normative clause of an IEEE standard. In early
2015, in a hotly debated move, the IEEE amended its IP policy to clarify that
members may charge a reasonable royalty that is based in part on the value
that the functionality of the claimed invention or feature within the
essential patent claim contributes to “the smallest saleable
Compliant Implementation” that practices the essential patent
claim.
|
IEEE
|
|
Standard
|
IEEE
P2413
|
History, Scope and Members
|
The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”)
project P2413 serves as a reference architecture incorporating more than 350
IEEE standards applicable to IoT, and more than 110 new IoT-related standards
in various stages of development. P2413 is intended to define the
“basic architectural building blocks and their ability to be integrated into
multi-tiered systems.” Among other things, project P2413 plans to turn the
information from different IoT platforms into commonly understood data
objects. The group held its first meeting in July 2014, with 23 vendors
and organizations involved, and hopes to finish its work on the future
standard by 2016. See the discussion of Wi-Fi HaLow for the IEEE’s IP
licensing approach.
|
License Approach
|
Not
publicly available.
|
ITU-T |
|
Standard
|
ITU-T
SG20
|
History, Scope and Members
|
In June
2015, Study Group 20 of the International Telecommunication Union announced
its work developing standardization requirements for IoT technologies, with
an initial focus on IoT applications in smart cities and communities.
The SG20 standard is focused on developing “international standards to enable
the coordinated development of IoT technologies, including M2M communications
and ubiquitous sensor networks.”
|
License Approach
|
The ITU-T
publishes a Common Patent Policy that describes a code of practice with
respect to patents. Disclosure of known patents and patent applications
(whether their own or third-party patent rights) by parties participating in
the ITU is required. While in general the detailed arrangements with
respect to patent licensing is left to the parties to negotiate, if a patent
is disclosed with respect to a recommendation or deliverable of the ITU-T,
and a patent holder is not willing to negotiate either a FRAND license
(whether royalty-free or royalty-bearing), then “the Recommendation or
Deliverable will not include provisions depending on the patent.”
|
Google
|
|
Standard
|
Brillo
& Weave
|
History, Scope and Members
|
In May 2015,
at Google’s I/O 2015, Google announced Brillo and Weave. Brillo, an IoT
OS that consists of an Android-based OS, core platform services and a
developer kit, links IoT devices with each other, with other devices and with
the cloud. Brillo uses Google’s communications protocol, Weave, the
standard that Google hopes to promote as the default standard for all IoT
devices. Weave is a cross-platform protocol that enables device setup
from a mobile phone, communication between devices and to the cloud, and user
interaction from mobile devices and the web. Weave is operating
system-agnostic, will work with Brillo but also with other operating systems,
and will work on top of a variety of radio technologies (i.e., Thread,
ZigBee, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi). In August 2015, Google disclosed its
product Google OnHub, the first Brillo-enabled device for the smart
home. Intel announced that its Intel® Edison computer module is one of
the first platforms to support Brillo.
|
License Approach
|
Not
publicly available.
|
Z-Wave Alliance |
|
Standard
|
Z-Wave
|
History, Scope and Members
|
Established
in 2005, the Z-Wave Alliance’s standard, Z-Wave, is a low-powered radio
frequency communications technology that supports full mesh networks without
the need for a coordinator node. The Z-Wave Alliance has over 375
members, and Z-Wave–powered products and applications cover a range of
control and monitoring for residential and light commercial
environments. The Z-Wave Alliance’s stated goal is to “to bring
advanced, yet practical wireless products and services to market that work
together seamlessly, regardless of brand or vendor.” According to the Z-Wave
website, there are over 1,400 Z-Wave interoperable products available,
and over 40 million Z-Wave products worldwide. The technology is
licensed by Sigma Designs under a Z-Wave Technology License Agreement, the
terms of which are not publicly available.
|
Our Way or the
Highway?
Disagreement over the appropriate IP licensing terms
for each of the proposed standards has characterized the standards debate to
date. In October 2014, Broadcom, a founding member of the OIC, reportedly
quit the group due to a disagreement over the IP licensing terms that required
companies contributing code to the project to waive their right to assert their
donated IP against infringers. In contrast, at the time, the AllSeen
Alliance did not have such a provision, but the Alliance’s IP Policy was amended
in January 2015 to include a comparable non-assert provision, seemingly
rendering the dispute moot.
Will these standard-setting organizations learn from the historical
experience in other sectors regarding standard-essential patents (“SEPs”)
and FRAND licensing terms? The problem is as follows: for IoT to operate
in a seamless and interoperable way, standardized technology is
essential. If the standardized elements of such technology are patented,
this creates a barrier to entry to the IoT. Without a license,
third-party users may be forced to either infringe upon such patents or pay
exorbitant license fees. Other technology industries, such as the
smartphone industry, have required owners of SEPs to offer non-exclusive
licenses to prospective licensees on FRAND licensing terms to mitigate this
issue.
However, the process for agreeing to FRAND terms is
seldom straightforward. Parties may not agree to what constitutes “fair
and reasonable” in the context of IoT licenses, particularly given the prospect
of enormous growth in the industry. Therefore, although many of the
standards bodies above have adopted RAND or FRAND licensing models, the
determination of what those RAND terms should be across the industry is far
from settled.
Which standards will ultimately garner the widest
adoption also remains unclear. Companies like Qualcomm and Intel have
joined many of the standards organizations instead of backing a single
one. Nonetheless, there have been recent movements by key players toward
a more collaborative effort. In April 2015, the ZigBee Alliance and the
Thread Group announced a collaboration to allow the ZigBee Cluster Library to
run over Thread networks, representing one of the first steps toward
interoperability in the fragmented IoT space.
Qualcomm announced in July
2015 that it would join the Thread Group as a member of the board, opening the
door for potential cooperation and collaboration between multiple bodies of
which it is a member. In November 2015, the OIC announced that it had
acquired the assets of the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) Forum, which had been
working on network connectivity since 1999.
Earlier in 2015, the IIC and
OIC announced a strategic liaison, including sharing use cases and architecture
requirements, to “accelerate the delivery of an industrial grade communications
framework for the IoT.” Further, in December 2015, the ZigBee Alliance
announced that it was working with EnOcean Alliance, a consortium for
battery-less, wireless smart buildings and smart homes, to combine the benefits
of En Ocean energy harvesting wireless solutions with ZigBee 3.0 for worldwide
applications in self-powered IoT sensor solutions.
Conclusions
Technical and legal uncertainty, if left unchecked,
can threaten to slow the maturation and growth of the technologies that the
standards are intended to promote, as well as the businesses whose operations,
products and services depend on the interoperability achieved through
implementation of the standards. While it may seem that interests should
align to create more certainty with respect to both technical and legal risks,
this is not always the case.
Barriers to entry can protect companies
against competition and benefit those companies with the resources to
understand and adapt to these risks. For many companies, however, the
lack of harmonization can present substantial if not insurmountable obstacles.
For the IoT to achieve its potential for enhanced
interoperability, adoption of standards and licensing practices that reduce
technical and legal uncertainty are required so that information generated by
smart devices may be shared across platforms to create new and innovative
functionality.
The myriad standards that define the wider framework of
IoT interconnection are paradoxically competing to be the most open and most
interoperable. As the IoT develops, networks of standardized technology
(and the range of standards governing them) will continue to proliferate.
Whether the IoT industry will move toward collaborating to achieve broader
interoperability and adopting licensing terms that reduce IP risk likely will
influence the extent to which the full potential for IoT will be achieved and
how quickly emerging IoT technologies will mature and be adopted.
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