As an active World Wide Web developer, I believe that allowing
patented technologies into open standards is a bad idea. The Internet has
progressed for many years without patented technologies in standards such as the
ones that the W3C defines (HTML, SVG, CSS), and giving one business control over
any standard will stifle development in that standard. I would not want my
job to become complicated by requiring me to license standards from corporations
simply to post a Web page or place an image on a site. This is quite
contrary to what the Web was originally designed to do: disseminate
information.
Corporations are free to develop their own patented technologies and let
them stand in the marketplace on their own; RealNetworks is such an
example. However, the openness and freeness of standards on the Internet
is crucial to its survival. If I had to pay for each time I wrote a Web
page, I would not develop content for the Internet anymore, and many other
people would do the same.
Thank you.