- From: Daniel Phillips <phillips@bonn-fries.net>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:05:19 +0200
- To: Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>, www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
On October 4, 2001 02:00 pm, Chris Lilley wrote: > From: Daniel Phillips (phillips@bonn-fries.net) > > The question that naturally arises is: even though Adobe was nowhwere > > mentioned in the SVG documents, > > Um, Adobe was mentioned on the patent license page that you cited. Correct. However, Adobe was not mentioned in the summary, which I am sure you will agree, is misleading: Summary The majority of SVG working group members are providing a Royalty Free license for SVG 1.0. There are four organisations who offered a RAND license for SVG 1.0. Examining each in detail: Kodak have publically stated that while they are unable to provide a RF license for their existing IP, they believe that they have no essential claims on the SVG 1.0 specification. Furthermore, they participate in an open-source effort to implement the complete SVG 1.0 specification. Apple informed the SVG 1.0 Working Group very early in the SVG 1.0 process of the patent they listed in their license statement. The SVG Working Group made a concerted effort to produce a specification that does not require implementors to infringe the patent. The other two RAND licenses were from IBM and Quark, both of whom have not announced any patents since the request for IP licenses was issued (in May 2001). Do you see Adobe anywhere in there? Me neither. What we do see from Adobe later in the document is: The following is the IPR declaration of Adobe Systems Incorporated for the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0 Specification as set forth in the Working Draft dated May 14, 2001 (the "Specification") [...] This declaration applies only to the unmodified content of the Specification. In other words, Adobe promises nothing, since the declaration applies only to the unmodified specification as of May 14. No details of Adobe's IP claims are provided in the patent statements document. Instead, a link is provided to: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-svg-wg/2001AprJun/0383.html which is inaccessible to the public. Try it if you don't believe me. And yes, this is the latest version of the patent statements document. > > does Adobe somehow stand to benefit from > > Apple's undisclosed RAND licensing terms? There is no smoking gun here, > > but there is certainly smoke. > > Perhaps you could be less poetic but more direct and describe the smoke > a bit more clearly. Well, we cleared that up, didn't we. Adobe certainly must be a main beneficiary of a patent-encumbered SVG standard. I'm sure that is good for Adobe, but is it good for us, the public? -- Adobe
Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 08:05:23 UTC