- From: Joe Chellman <joe@chellman.org>
- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 00:29:43 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
I'm distressed reading about the W3C patent policy. Those of us in the web community who have wholeheartedly adopted the W3C's standards in our work feel rather betrayed that an organization we believe in is going to start helping its members patent the building blocks of the web. No one should be given the opportunity to enforce a patent on W3C standards, the building blocks of the web. The working draft of the patent policy acknowledges that low-level standards should be RF, but the boundary between what should certainly be royalty-free and what should available RAND is not clear and probably never will be. That's the most dangerous part. It seems too easy for that boundary to be obscured to a member's clear advantage, to the disadvantage of the rest of the web. What seems "reasonable and non-discriminatory" to a select few can be very costly for the rest. To save us all from that danger, the W3C must not get involved in the business of protecting companies' patents. The members should be encouraged to continue participation in the committees that develop the standards, continue to develop the tools we all use to implement the standards, but the W3C should not get involved in patents. There are more than enough ways for large companies to make money from the web. If a member of a committee spends money researching a standard, they stand to be in a superior position to develop the best tool to implement that standard than other developers. Let that be the W3C's message to companies wanting to patent standards. Thanks, Joe -- Joe Chellman e: joe@chellman.org w: http://www.chellman.org/ f: 419/730.6768
Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 03:28:18 UTC