[E-VOTE] Recommendation to adopt Patent Policy 2020

Dear VCWG,

W3C's patent policy has evolved, resulting in what is informally referred to as "Patent Policy 2020"[1,2]. This is the Patent Policy that will be adopted by any newly chartered Working Groups. For groups whose charter ends after March 2021, by default the official Patent Policy is the old one but the group may choose now to adopt PP2020 for its current and future work.

Most of us are non-lawyers, so the exact formulation of the new PP is not really of importance here; the legal and editorial details of PP2020 have already been reviewed and voted upon by W3C's Advisory Committee. The only question that this WG has to decide is whether the key changes in the new PP provide enough value for this WG to move to PP2020 now or whether the group should continue its work under the current PP.  The key change is this:  normally the patent protection for would-be implementers of our specs (if we republish a significant new version) comes into effect once the Recommendation is published, but under the new policy the protection would also apply during the CR period of the document's evolution. In other words, our possible future CR implementers would be able to do their work without any fear of facing patent issues from other members. If that protection is important for the members of this group, then the new PP2020 should be adopted; if not, we can continue as we are.

Normally, changing the patent policy in use requires a formal rechartering of the working group.  Due to the number of groups affected by the PP2020 change, just this once W3C is offering a simplified process that only requires re-joining the group (see remark in the post-script below).

We are a bit late in this process, for which we apologize, but it is still possible for the group to make a decision before the deadline. We would therefore propose that the VC WG adopts Patent Policy 2020 as soon as possible, conducting the poll by email. The deadline for the responses is the 25th of November, i.e., right before Thanksgiving. Unless there are objections, we would then enact the change through the relevant W3C process.  Note that our "sister" Working Group, the DID Working Group, has just recently agreed to adopt PP2020.

If you object to adopting Patent Policy 2020 for this Working Group, please reply with your objection by 25 November 2020.

Thanks

Dan Burnett, WG chair
Ivan Herman, W3C staff contact


[1] https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20200915/
[2] https://www.w3.org/wiki/Process2020

p.s. If we don't adopt the new policy now, a formal rechartering of the WG would be necessary to adopt it later, with a 4 week AC vote and all that jazz… Doing it now means a blanket rechartering of the relevant groups by the W3C Management in December with the only action remaining for all members to formally re-join the group. That is a one-time action to ease the transition.