Public Comments on the W3C Patent Policy Framework Working Draft

From my point of view, the critical part of this draft is 4. (e) 5.:

> (e) RAND License
[...]
>         5. may be
>        conditioned on payment of reasonable, non-discriminatory
>        royalties or fees; 
[...]

The question here is, what is reasonable?

In my opinion, an extremely important part of a reasonable fee is 
that it can only be a small part of the price of the end product, and 
also, that it must be the sole discretion of the seller of the product 
to determine that price.

Specifically, *any* non-zero fee necessary for a product intended to 
be freeware is most definitely *NOT* reasonable. (Nor can it 
possibly be non-discriminatory.)

I urge to add a clarification that ensures this kind of 
reasonableness.


Regards - Kai Henningsen

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Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 12:16:20 UTC