- From: Bruce J. Pezzlo <bpezzlo@plumcc.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 23:55:34 -0400
- To: <www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org>
(RE: http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-policy/) Please extend the September 30 deadline for public comment of the Patent Policy Framework. I believe the W3C has not done enough to publicize this Framework and seek out comment from independant developers. As such, an additional month for public review of this framework is requested. I disagree with the w3c recommending the allowance of fee-based standards. I believe that submittal of a standard should inherenly mean the owner is giving up Intellectual Property (IP) rights of the technology in return for the opportunity to have the technology become widely adopted as an industry standard. I believe, and expect of w3c org, to stand behind the principles of open standards. The w3c should not stop short of this goal. I disagree with the notion that companies should be able to continue charging fee's for technology after they have submitted the technology to the public standards review board. Rather, Companies should focus on profiting from technologies that enable and facilitate the open-standard. Encouraging wide adoption of the standard to other developers is in the best interest of companies building technologies based upon the standards; the best means of industry-wide adoption of standards is by virtue of a ROYALTY-FREE standard. Wide adoption of a standard will ultimately drive the market for companies' product lines which are designed to enabe and facilitate using the standard. Meanwhile, it will leave room for innovation. Already we have seen how slow the Patent and Trademark offices are to respond to new ideas. Anything but Royalty-Free Standards, I fear, will result in reluctance of wide-spread adoption, weakening w3c standards community. Further, it will create excessive amounts of IP litigation as innovators become stymied while attempting to enhance a current fee-based standard. And worse of all, it will slow the develoment of technology, as companies wait very long period of time for their technology to become protected by patents before submitting them to standard review boards. Adopting "Reasonable and Non-discrimnatory" (RAND) licensing will stymie innovation in software development. One cost of submitting a technology for adoption as an industry standard should be full submission of the Intellectual Property to the public domain. There is clearly room for profit for those with the best tools to implement the standard. There should be no need for additional profit for the use of the standard. RAND is, perhaps, appropriate for licensing of proprietary software. However, there is no place for licensing in the use of public domain standards. This licensing model is better suited for the purchase of tools to enable use of the standard. I suggest the RAND language be a seperate submittal to the w3c org as a recommended standard method vendors may adopt for use when licensing their software. However, this fee structure should NOT be instituted for industry-standards in and of themselves. Please delay the last call period for an additional thiry days, and with this additional time and spend additional marketing effort to gain the opinion of independent software developers before moving forward with the recommendation of the Patent Policy Framework. Thanks you for all the great work W3C has done heretofore to keep innovation moving forward on the www. --- Bruce Pezzlo MCSD & MCDBA President PLUM Computer Consulting, Inc. (617) 266 - 1942 x201 Fax: (617) 267 - 0895 bpezzlo@plumcc.com
Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00:22 UTC