Re: [E-VOTE] Recommendation to adopt Patent Policy 2020

I support adoption of the new PP2020 policy

Kind regards

David


On 19/11/2020 21:01, Daniel Burnett wrote:
> 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.
>

Received on Friday, 20 November 2020 09:31:42 UTC