- From: Tony Sellers <tony_sellers@yahoo.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 19:25:32 -0700 (PDT)
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
First, I request that the deadline for comment on the currently proposed patent policy change be extended. It is in my opinion advantageous to individuals that action on this matter be delayed to allow serious consideration of these very weighty issues by a broader group than currently writes. It may also be advantageous to W3C not to be seen as rushing to action under the obscuring cloud of recent world events. I second the thoughts of Theo de Raadt on deadline extension. Since we who might comment are not yet assured of this extension, please forgive any incoherence in my hurried arguments and understand their spirit. Second, I urge the the defeat of the proposed changes to W3C patent policy. The bases for my opposition to the new policy are: a threat to real comptetition and the historical precedents of similar moves to stifle progress in their relative endeavors, and threat to private ownership of data. By definition, a patented standard or portion thereof would require a license from its patent holder to enable a competing product. There is, I feel, and irreconcilable tension between a patent holder's wish to maximize license revenues and to prohibit competition. I realize that the intent of non-discriminatory license policy is to level this obstacle, but see among others the objection of Alan Cox to the actual discrimination still allowed towards smaller businesses and free [speech|beer] technology developers. Free technology is owed a great debt by the current commercial and public benefactors of networking and internet techniology. Without technology that was developed freely, the reach of our working environment would have been severly circumscribed. Can you imagine an internet without sendmail, Netscape, Apache? While I can , I don't like the way it looks. Thin and anemic are adjectives that come to mind. The regressive nature of the RAND proposal would place a disproportionate, and therefore discriminatory burden on smaller non- and for-profit companies and on developers 'scratching an itch' by developing free technology. Without the freedom of a patent-free framework for their development, we might have been denied nmany boons in the past and untild ones in the future. This price is too high. Maintain the status quo. If you'll forgive a moment of US-centrism, the purpose of patents, as expressed in the United States constitution is to encourage the useful arts. In recent years, patents have occasionally worked to stifle rather than promote the useful arts. One specific example of patent counterproductivity that comes to mind regards MPEG technology. The Motion Pictures Expert Group explained its incorporation of patented technologies in their standards in a well documented manner that resembles the current proposal of the W3C. To date, MPEG technology has remained in the stranglehold of a few select companies who have held the patents or the capital to license them. The end result has been both a slow adoption of the standards and an even slower progress in their further development. Interestingly, the single largest application of MPEG technology has not contributed significantly to MPEG patent holder revenues. The right of innovators to control their work and attempt to profit from it is sacrosanct in most cultures. The internet community is no exception. This does not mean that such innovators are entitled to have governmental or other standards making organizatons enshrine their innovations as standards at the expense of competitors and private individuals. Congruent to that right of ownership for standards innovators is the right of individual creators to own their data. Patented standards for the storage or communication of that data compromise a creator's right to their own data. I can concieve of no moral framework which can support this result. Put simply, there is no room for intellectual property in the realm of internet standards. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 22:25:33 UTC