W3C Patent Policy

I think it is very important for all W3C standards to be royalty-free.  
Software patents have proven to be abused by the patent holders to force 
unreasonable payments from developers.  Even if a patent holder initially 
provides royalty-free use of a technology in the beginning, they often come 
back later demanding for large payments once the technology is in wide spread 
use.  A perfect example of this is Unisys and the GIF image format.  
Publishing standards that incorporate patents also provide undue leverage to 
patent holders in controlling the direction of web development, restrict the 
adoption of standards, and in no way can be good for the web.  I urge you to 
make all W3C standards royaly-free now and forever.

Sincerely,
Keith Winston
Millennium Consulting Corp.

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 12:06:38 UTC