Re: Summary of 15-17 October 2001 Patent Policy WG Face-to-Face meeting available

In response to "Patent Policy Working Group Face-to-Face Meeting
Summary":
(http://www.w3.org/2001/10/ppwg-cupertino-ftf-summary.html)

 > Whatever policy W3C chooses, more effort must be put
 > into educating the developer community about the 
 > complexity of patent licensing issues.

You pretend that thousands of developers start wasting their time in law
issues. Usually when someone is working on anything he tries that
everybody else understands what he is doing at the same level, but it is
just impossible. The solution is MAKE THINGS SIMPLE. And in W3 Patent
Policy this means RF-only, no member been able to patent anything on a
standard, no patents used in standards before patent holder authorizes
it
RF in unlimited time.

An example of how complex rules are worse than simple ones: Here in
Spain to get a driving license everybody has to pass an exam. Someone
who was bored decided to make a law that forbids people doing an exam
the week after he failed once, two weeks after he failed twice and so
on. The idea behind this was that people went better prepared to the
exam. But some people that need the driving license is taking lessons
everyday, while others only take lessons on weekends. And what the
hell!: The one taking the exam is the most interested in passing. (And
he is paying for the exam) So let people chose, the simple rule, you can
get an exam whenever you want is the best. The law is being removed now,
after precious time have been wasted by many people.

[About the RF policy:]
 > Defensive Use: Should it be possible to withdraw a license 
 > offered under this policy if that licensee later sues the
 > licensor for patent infringement on another technology?

This is another argument against RAND. Would it be fair that someone
license RF a patent for public use in W3C and then he gets charged a fee
by another member of W3C who has covered with patents a RAND allowed
standard?

Thanks,
  Antonio

-----------------------------------------------------
Antonio Arauzo Azofra            Ph.D. Student in the
Dept. of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
E.T.S.I.Informatica. University of Granada, Spain(EU)

Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2001 06:51:49 UTC