Just to say thank you to Tim C and others for the clear and helpful recent posts concerning SNOMED-CT and openEHR. I am in frequent contact with Prof Martin Severs, Chairman of the NHS Clinical Data Standards Board, here in England. Martin is very busy with the international negotiations towards the new SNOMED SDO and so I have forwarded this and other recent posts about SNOMED-CT, from the openEHR lists, to him.
David Ingram At 06:26 20/12/2006 +1100, you wrote: >Bert Verhees wrote: > > Williamtfgoossen at cs.com schreef: > >> In een bericht met de datum 18-12-2006 18:00:54 West-Europa > >> (standaardtijd), schrijft mattias.forss at gmail.com: > >> > >> > >>> Maybe you're right, the definitions could be added as comments, but > >>> for proprietary terminology like SNOMED CT this will mean that these > >>> kind of archetypes can only be distributed to people that have paid > >>> the license. > >> > >> Sorry, but Snomed CT cannot be considered a proprietary terminology > >> given the formal international SDO status from January onward. > >Although it is not at all clear that SNOMED CT will be made freely >available to everyone on Earth after the establishment of the SDO. My >understanding is that individual states (countries) will need to >sublicense it from the SDO, in return for a fee, and can then choose to >sublicense it (for free, or for a fee) to its citizens and residents. >The main role of the SDO is to diversify the ownership of the SNOMED CT >intellectual property from the just the College of American Pathologists >to an international non-profit governance body (the SDO). But >"non-profit" does not necessarily mean "available at no cost to all >god's children". > >Thus, it may not be legal to transfer archetype definitions containing >parts of SNOMED CT between jurisdictions, even if both the source and >the target jurisdiction both provide SNOMED CT for free to their >residents, because that free and universal national-level provision will >be under *different* sublicences, which almost certainly forbid transfer >of SNOMED CT outside the jurisdiction in question (I am pretty sure the >Australian sublicense for SNOMED CT imposes such restrictions). > >Advice from lawyers who are a) familiar with SNOMED CT licensing and b) >with open source and related concepts, is essential here. Much will >depend on national copyright laws, I suspect, as some countries have >specific "fair use" or "fair dealing" clauses in their copyright laws >which may allow small parts of SNOMED CT to be incorporated into >archetype definitions regardless of licensing arrangements, but many >countries do not have such provisions. Expert advice is required before >proceeding to far with embedding parts of SNOMED CT in archetype >definitions, so that the implications and consequent limitations are >well understood. My view is that embedding aspects and/or parts of >SNOMED CT in archetypes is unavoidable, but the implications for data >interchange between countries needs to be understood. None of these >issues are specific to openEHR - they relate to any mechanism for >embedding or encoding information with SNOMED CT. > >It may well be that changes to national SNOMED CT sublicenses are needed >to overcome difficulties. That should not be regarded as impossible - >the SNOMED CT national and international governance bodies are keen for >SNOMED CT to be used, not for it to sit on a shelf due to licensing >problems. And no-one is making huge profits from SNOMED CT, thus greed >does not complicate matters. > >Tim C > > >> > >> Further, most English speaking countries (Cnd, UK, US, Aus, Nw > >> Zealand) already have a national licence allowing everyone to use it > >> for health purposes. > > You mean, for free? Paid by the resp. governments? > > > > That, I did not know. > > > > Bert > > _______________________________________________ > > openEHR-technical mailing list > > openEHR-technical at openehr.org > > http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-technical > > > >_______________________________________________ >openEHR-technical mailing list >openEHR-technical at openehr.org >http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-technical David Ingram, Professor of Health Informatics, Tel. 020 7288 5965 CHIME, University College London, Fax. 020 7288 3322 Archway Campus, Highgate Hill, London N19 3UA http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk _______________________________________________ openEHR-technical mailing list openEHR-technical at openehr.org http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-technical
