Distributed Tracing Working Group - IPR
Licensing Commitments
Participants in this group have made certain licensing commitments by joining the group. In addition to these Participants, non-participating W3C Member may have made licensing commitments.
W3C Members not participating in this group who wish to make the same licensing commitments for specifications developed by this group may do so through a Join form for licensing commitments from non-participating Members.
Other parties making a substantive contribution to the work of the group need to make a Royalty-Free patent commitment, as described in section 6.2.6 of the Process. Team contacts will provide instructions for recording the non-participant licensing commitment before the contribution can be accepted.
Participation
- W3C Member Organizations
-
- Adobe
- Cisco
- Dynatrace LLC
- Google LLC
- IBM Corporation
- Lenovo
- Meta
- Microsoft Corporation
- Pearson plc
- Refinitiv
- Salesforce
- The New York Times
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Wiley
Note: Log in to see links to organizations if you have member access
- Invited Experts
-
- Team members
-
- Philippe Le Hegaret
See also the list of individuals participating in this group.
The Call for Participation for this group was announced on 2020-08-26; see the Patent Policy FAQ for information about continued participation before re-joining the group.
Specifications published by the Group
The following is the list of specifications produced by the Distributed Tracing Working Group that have associated disclosures obligations, and possible licensing obligations under the W3C Patent Policy.
| Document under the W3C Patent Policy | Patent Disclosure | Patent Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Trace Context | disclose | exclude |
| Propagation format for distributed context: Baggage | disclose | exclude |
| Trace Context Level 2 | disclose | exclude |
| Document not/no longer under the W3C Patent Policy | Patent Disclosure | Patent Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Trace Context Protocols Registry | disclose | Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP) |
Patent Disclosures and Claim Exclusions
This section summarizes patent disclosures by participants in W3C's Distributed Tracing 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 Distributed Tracing Working Group should use the Distributed Tracing 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 Distributed Tracing 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 Distributed Tracing 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
- Trace Context Level 2
- Call for exclusion started on 2023-04-18, opportunity until 2023-06-17
View previous exclusion opportunities
- Trace Context Level 2
- Call for exclusion started on 2022-09-29, opportunity until 2023-02-26
- Propagation format for distributed trace context: Baggage
- Call for exclusion started on 2020-10-20, opportunity until 2021-03-19
- Trace Context
- Call for exclusion started on 2019-08-13, opportunity until 2019-10-12
- Trace Context
- Call for exclusion started on 2019-05-09, opportunity until 2019-07-08
- Trace Context
- Call for exclusion started on 2018-11-06, opportunity until 2019-04-05
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:
- Provide additional licensing information for documents produced by this Working Group
- Provide the same additional licensing information for all documents with associated licensing obligations produced by this Working Group, or
- 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.