Patent owners should fend for themselves.

Why should W3C be going out of its way to legitimize
patented technologies for use on the web? If someone
has a patented technology they think everyone wants,
then they're in great shape -- everyone wants their
technology, and will demand it in their software. They
don't need the W3C to push it on people.

What's more likely is that a lot of companies will
have bad patents, which should never have been
granted in the first place, and will try to use the
W3C to make a profit from something that otherwise
wouldn't have been popular or profitable.

The result of this process would be to deal a horrible
blow to free software, and to free information in general.