Re: Concerns over aspects of PPF

I double the proposals of Chris Lilley
(http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/0060.html)
and want to add some comments.

In general: Any w3c Recommendation has to be implementable under any 
open source license, which is accepted as compatible to GPL or BSD License.

to Chapter 7.1.1 The need to mention claims is essential. Otherwise the 
working group may see itself swamped with patent claims which are void.

"Members making disclosures need not provide the licensing terms on 
which the essential claims would be available"

replace "not" by "to". If the working group does not know the licensing 
terms, it cannot decide whether working around the patent is appropriate.


The Term "Essential Claim":

It is not acceptable to have claims on patents which are filed up to one 
year after the first public working draft. The PWD is clearly prior art 
to the patent. This will lead to RAMBUS-like disasters. An essential 
claim should only be possible on patents which are filed up to the date 
of the first public working draft. Any claim of patents of a later 
filling are void claims.

Please clear this up. Why this long term AFTER the first public draft.

License Mode of a Working Group: Every WG should start out as RF. The 
change to RAND should be publically discussed.

Furthermore I wish the fact respected that many jurisdictions in the 
world declare software patents as well as patents on business methods as 
not applicable.
So a RAND WG should explicitly state under which jursidictions, which 
patents are valid. So that people in Software Patent free states can 
take advatage of a free implementation of the recommendation.
The license is not allowed to be uniform in that respect.

Chapter 5.3 Procedure for changing licensing mode of an existing working 
group.

Does this talk about existing recommendations as well? Does this allow 
the changing of the license mode of say, the xml working group?

This should not at all be possible. It would generate the possibility to 
render any implementation of a recommendation as illegal. You need 
security before you start a large project. If I cant tell how much 
Royalties a recommendation will cost me in the future, I cannot 
implement anything. The whole paragraph should be replaced by the 
statement, that any changing of the licensing mode of an
existing WG is only possible from RAND to RF not vice versa.

-- 
Thomas Strauß         |
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60598 Frankfurt/Main  |
+49-696-616-9801      |

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 17:03:07 UTC