The RAND proposed in the Patent Policy Framework

Standards that include fee-based patents go against the best interest of the
community: It limits the range of possible implementations by virtually
eliminating open-source and other royalties-free driven developments
efforts. It also provides more leverage in the definition of those standards
to the companies owning such patents. This opens the door to a steering of
the standards in directions favoring more the interest of some companies
than the interest of the community. Software patents are also far from being
internationally recognized (they are mostly a North American and Japanese
phenomenon and are actively fought against in Europe where US pressure is
strong (see http://www.freepatents.org/)): Implementing fee-based patents in
the W3C standards would not be realistically enforceable everywhere, and
would put at a disadvantage developers where it is.

The best model for Web standards, is a model where standards do not include
patents or include only royalties-free patents. The RAND proposed in the
Patent Policy Framework, as it is currently drafted, does not respect the
mandate of the W3C, and would be very detrimental to an harmonious
development of the World Wide Web and any Internet-related technology.

Regards,
-Yves Savourel