- From: Jonathan Kennedy <Jonathan.Kennedy@BillServ.com>
- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 14:30:09 -0500
- To: "'www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org'" <www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <E343201F1F5AD411B2350004AC4CB3420193B52B@www.securebills.com>
Patent Policy Working Group; I would like to start of by saying that I am pleased to see that, in the W3C response, you acknowledge the importance of the open source community and individual developer in the evolution of what is now the Internet. However, I disagree immensely with the assertion that continued and substantial growth may only come from a change in policy to use patented technologies. I also disagree that the W3C may sidestep the important ideological debate behind the exists of patents in general. The decisions you are faced with making are those decisions that will best benefit the entire community. Whether or not allowing patent enforcement best meets those goals is the same question posed by the original lawmakers. However, instead of entering an ideological debate I will only speak to the empirical evidence as it pertains to the Internet. Firstly, the W3C itself acknowledges the importance of the Open Source community in making the web what it is today. Not only is the Open Source community to be acknowledged, but ever first time web developer that contributed his part to the overall wealth of content available on the web. It was the availability of unlicensed technology that made this possible. If the telnet, FTP, or HTTP protocol had been patented during inception, they would have been quickly abandoned in favor of other unencumbered technologies. It has been observed time and time again that the industry will not support a communication medium that you must pay to use. The HTTP standard was observed for the very reason that it did allow everyone to communicate freely and without hindrance. To entrench yourself in a system under the pretense of free and open communication and then drastically change the rules is an extremely irresponsible practice. In fact, those encumbered standards that have been adopted by the community today have largely been because of an existing entrenchment of technology; not because of the objective validity of the standard. If the W3C tried this during its earlier years, the industry would have abandoned it. It is also questionable whether or not the W3C is indeed entrenched enough in the current system to be immune to an aggregate industry backlash. Secondly, we should take a look at the growth of the Web and the Internet today. The technologies being produced continue to expand on the content and quality of services provided without the need to introduce patent endorsement into public specification. To do so would not only limit the amount of technology being produced but would serve to further curtail the education of the masses who are trying to enter the industry. We must ask ourselves if the Internet really requires that public standards organizations endorse patented technologies. Most of us believe that answer to be no; the web will continue to experience continued growth without such action on the part of public standards bodies. In fact, we can see today how the prolific and unrestrained issuing of patents has actually disrupted the business of meaningful contributors to the industry (For example: The one-click shopping nonsense). If the W3C were to actually endorse the use of patented technologies, it would only serve to promote this current trend of abuse. The W3C also makes reference to other large standards entities in an attempt to justify this new policy. Specifically, in section 4 of the W3C public response, you cited section 10.3.2 of IETF's Internet Standards Process. However, one should make note of the preceding section (10.3.1) that outlines the rules of contribution. l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the IETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the license of the original contribution. I have personally observed no such verbiage within the proposed W3C Patent Policy that indicates the sincere preference to use only technologies that are freely available for implementation by all. Such mentality can be cited frequently throughout the IETF draft. I again respectfully request that the W3C decide against the addition of the proposed Patent Policy. Jonathan Kennedy Programmer/Analyst - SIG Development jonathan.kennedy@billserv.com The information in this email, including any attached files or documents, is confidential, may be privileged, are copyrighted property of Billserv, Inc, and is intended solely for the addressee(s) and other official use by the receiving company. Access, copying, dissemination, distribution or re-use of the information in this email and aforementioned attachments by anyone else or any outside party is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, all copies of this email and associated attachments in your possession should be destroyed.
Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 15:32:42 UTC