Comment on RAND and RF type licencing

Your introductory material states that as new industries
come in contact with the internet, differing business practices,
in particular traditions regarding patents, will likely be
translated to the internet as well and that the W3C must
develop a policy towards these patent issues.  I agree that
there must be a policy which can be stated easily enough:

No recommendation may be made by the W3C for which
there exists an essential claim.

This avoids embroiling the W3C in drawn out legal and
procedural battles concerning what constitutes "resonable,"
conflicting patents, etc, but mostly keeps standards free
of the taint of corporate manipulation as they rightly should
be.   For after all, the internet's great contribution to
mankind is free access to information and refusing to
recommend anything that could conceivably be restricted or
controlled by a sole entity (patent claimant) underscores this.   

-Jeff Waller

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:41:12 UTC