W3C Patent Policy

It is vital to the nature of the internet and healthy competition that W3C standards be royalty free. Many times in the past it has been shown that patent holders will abuse their licensing power to stay or try to stay in a position of dominance. Two perfect examples of this are Microsoft and Rambus (sorry guys). I have been a developer for 15 years (PC) and have seen many a promising technology suborned and eventually destroyed by patent wielders in the name of "being number one". Being at the top is important, but it seems to me to be a hollow victory if you have to get there by cheating and lying. If your products cannot stand on their own merit, you deserve to be supplanted at the top. This kind of behavior has been seen numerous times in the past in this industry and will, in my opinion, greatly increase if W3C standards can be patented or if already patented things are recommended as standards.

Sincerely,

Russ Howard

Received on Saturday, 6 October 2001 23:01:26 UTC