[www-patentpolicy-comment] <none>

To whom it may concern,

It has been brought to my attention via www.techtv.com that the W3C is 
basically charging royalty for web page essentials (i.e. gif images).  I believe

that this is a very bad idea and will lead to an extreme slow down of the 
growth of the Internet and the technologies associated.  Many companies are 
solely based on Internet sales such as Ebay.com or Amazon.com.  

Standard and Poor's STOCKREPORTS states that Amazon.com's relative strength 
(a scale from 1-99, 1 being the weakest) is 8 and has 
been "bearish"(not doing so well) since July 2001.  And Ebay.com's
relative 
strength is 35 and it has been bearish since August 2001.  The insider activity

also indicates that it is in an unfavorable position.   

These are just two of the many companies that are solely dependent on their 
websites for the sales of their products.  Big business like Amazon, are not 
going to hurt as much as the little at home business that use the Internet to 
sell their products.  Small business are at the heart of the economy for the 
United States.  By this patent being passed it will hurt the economy in a 
sector that is already struggling, and it will in turn hurt the overall 
economy of the nation.  With people reluctant to start up on the Internet this 
will hinder the progress and the growth of the World Wide Web.  Web technology 
will consequently be slowed with the progress of the web.  

Passing this patent would be a very big mistake by the W3C.  I myself have 
considered starting a business and having the Internet as one of my venues of 
advertising and communicating with my customers, but if this new patent passes,

I will seriously have to reconsider.  Please reconsider this patent and do not 
pass it into action.

Sincerely,
Ankit Patel



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Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 18:48:50 UTC