Patents and Standards

Dear Sir or Madam,

I believe that owners of software patents have a vested interest in getting
their patented art specified as a standard.  RAND is an ambiguous term, and
what one entity feels to be RAND may be quite burdensome, especially to the
individual developer.

It is bad enough that some patented file formats become de-facto standards;
W3C should not promote this model.  At what point do you put yourself in
the position of handing a patent holder the keys to the web?  Once the
technology becomes widely used, the patent holder can change the terms to
whatever they like and users have little recourse.  What if HTTP were
patented, and the patent was enforceable?  What if that patent owner at
this time started enforcing the patent?

Whether they should or not, the public trusts the W3C to provide open,
unencumbered standards.  I, for one, would appreciate it if you did just
that.

Sincerely,

Erik Nelson

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 10:10:18 UTC