Sony Electronics (SEL) doesn’t endorse CableLabs’ OpenCable Appli...

NCTA’s ex parte listed SEL among companies that had signed an OpenCable intellectual property rights (IPR) declaration or participated in OpenCable engineering change request (ECR) meetings. But SEL said its only purpose for participating in the OpenCable ECR process has been to change the OCAP specification “in ways that would permit the retail availability of multi-function consumer electronics products that can receive bi-directional cable programming.” SEL believes OCAP, “in its current form, does not meet this goal,” the company said. But the OpenCable ECR process “is the only avenue available to interested parties to suggest changes to OCAP,” SEL said. SEL signed the OpenCable Contribution Agreement, which includes the IPR declaration, because it was required for participation in the joint CEA-NCTA technical working group, the company said. SEL said it “protested having to sign” the agreement, “but was told it would be excluded” from the working group meetings if it refused to do so. That SEL participated in the OpenCable ECR proceedings and signed the Contribution Agreement should be taken by the FCC “as evidence that SEL is dedicated to fixing what it considers to be the flaws in OCAP,” the company said: The Commission shouldn’t interpret either action “as an endorsement of OCAP as it now exists, or the process by which CableLabs has controlled the development of the OCAP specification to date.”