Against RAND and Patent Policy Framework working draft

(RE: http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-policy/)

Please extend the September 30 deadline for public comment of the Patent
Policy Framework.  I believe the W3C has not done enough to publicize
this Framework and seek out comment from independant developers.  As
such, an additional month for public review of this framework is
requested.

I disagree with the w3c recommending the allowance of fee-based
standards.

I believe that submittal of a standard should inherenly mean the owner
is giving up Intellectual Property (IP) rights of the technology in
return for the opportunity to have the technology become widely adopted
as an industry standard.  I believe, and expect of w3c org, to stand
behind the principles of open standards.  The w3c should not stop short
of this goal.

I disagree with the notion that companies should be able to continue
charging fee's for technology after they have submitted the technology
to the public standards review board.  Rather, Companies should focus on
profiting from technologies that enable and facilitate the
open-standard.  Encouraging wide adoption of the standard to other
developers is in the best interest of companies building technologies
based upon the standards; the best means of industry-wide adoption of
standards is by virtue of a ROYALTY-FREE standard.  Wide adoption of a
standard will ultimately drive the market for companies' product lines
which are designed to enabe and facilitate using the standard.
Meanwhile, it will leave room for innovation.  Already we have seen how
slow the Patent and Trademark offices are to respond to new ideas.

Anything but Royalty-Free Standards, I fear, will result in reluctance
of wide-spread adoption, weakening w3c standards community.  Further, it
will create excessive amounts of IP litigation as innovators become
stymied while attempting to enhance a current fee-based standard.  And
worse of all, it will slow the develoment of technology, as companies
wait very long period of time for their technology to become protected
by patents before submitting them to standard review boards.

Adopting "Reasonable and Non-discrimnatory" (RAND) licensing will stymie
innovation in software development.

One cost of submitting a technology for adoption as an industry standard
should be full submission of the Intellectual Property to the public
domain.  There is clearly room for profit for those with the best tools
to implement the standard.  There should be no need for additional
profit for the use of the standard.

RAND is, perhaps, appropriate for licensing of proprietary software.
However, there is no place for licensing in the use of public domain
standards.  This licensing model is better suited for the purchase of
tools to enable use of the standard.  I suggest the RAND language be a
seperate submittal to the w3c org as a recommended standard method
vendors may adopt for use when licensing their software.  However, this
fee structure should NOT be instituted for industry-standards in and of
themselves.

Please delay the last call period for an additional thiry days, and with
this additional time and spend additional marketing effort to gain the
opinion of independent software developers before moving forward with
the recommendation of the Patent Policy Framework.

Thanks you for all the great work W3C has done heretofore to keep
innovation moving forward on the www.

---
Bruce Pezzlo
MCSD & MCDBA
President
PLUM Computer Consulting, Inc.
(617) 266 - 1942 x201
Fax: (617) 267 - 0895
bpezzlo@plumcc.com

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00:22 UTC