- From: Yves Savourel <ysavourel@translate.com>
- Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 11:33:39 -0600
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
- Message-ID: <PCEIJMPLBANPKDPOPEMLKEMBCIAA.ysavourel@translate.com>
Standards that include fee-based patents go against the best interest of the community: It limits the range of possible implementations by virtually eliminating open-source and other royalties-free driven developments efforts. It also provides more leverage in the definition of those standards to the companies owning such patents. This opens the door to a steering of the standards in directions favoring more the interest of some companies than the interest of the community. Software patents are also far from being internationally recognized (they are mostly a North American and Japanese phenomenon and are actively fought against in Europe where US pressure is strong (see http://www.freepatents.org/)): Implementing fee-based patents in the W3C standards would not be realistically enforceable everywhere, and would put at a disadvantage developers where it is. The best model for Web standards, is a model where standards do not include patents or include only royalties-free patents. The RAND proposed in the Patent Policy Framework, as it is currently drafted, does not respect the mandate of the W3C, and would be very detrimental to an harmonious development of the World Wide Web and any Internet-related technology. Regards, -Yves Savourel
Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 13:33:15 UTC