- From: Mirko Kloppstech <gemeindebrief@feg-veldhausen.de>
- Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 20:04:02 +0200
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Dear sirs, I write on behalf of the draft policy, especially concerning the RAND licensing mode. Inclusion of patented algorithms into a public standard has the consequence that the owner of the patent may keep anyone from including the algorithm into his/her program. This will most likely exclude the developers of free software, since they donīt (and canīt) pay any licensing fee. But also in the "professional" area this will lead to concurrency not based upon quality but based upon patents, i.e. not the best will be the winner but the richest and most powerful. Additionally, even if the patent is "non-discriminatory" at the beginning, a company can change the "nd" terms of the patent to very discriminating terms once it`s included into the w3 standard, especially when it has not just become an official but the de facto standard used everywhere. A very good example originates from my own country: Mp3, once rather free, is charged now and will be charged even more in the future. Mr. Fraunhofer afford to do so, because itīs not easy any more to use something else than mp3 and staying compatible. Iīm not sure whether itīs wise to be said in this place, but in my opinion itīs time to try to get rid of the w3c. Mirko Kloppstech
Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 14:34:01 UTC