Patents and standards

• From: Roland Kaufmann <Roland.Kaufmann@student.uib.no>
• Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 10:25:49 +0200 (MET DST)
• To: <www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.30.0110011018340.26978-100000@erasmus.uib.no>

[As it is still 30. september on some islands in the Pacific]

It is my view that something branded as a "standard" should be free
from patents. Any-one that claims to comply a standard, should not be
able to enforce a patent against any part of it, and they would have
to explicitly write off their ability to make a case against any
other party that implement the standard.

I believe that is the only way to keep standards what they should be:
a basis that all implementations should adhere to. One party should
not be able to blackmail others into licensing their often
ill-granted and questionable patents in order to adhere to a
standard.

If this policy is put to work, the W3C will slowly loose its role as
a de-facto standards organization, as most developers will regard its
standards as a way to be forced into a licensing scheme. It has then
clearly played out its role in our community.

May it rest in piece.

	R.

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 04:25:56 UTC