- From: John Nagle <nagle@animats.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 11:28:47 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Patents on "interfaces" are only useful if the interface is a standard, de-facto or otherwise. The W3C basically defines interfaces. Typically, there are many ways to do an "interface". The W3C should steer its interface designs around patents, not design them in. Nothing in the "RAND" proposal provides any justification for this action. There is no new patented technology essential to the functioning of the World Wide Web. Historically, the GIF file compression problem was the only significant collision between patents and widely used W3C interfaces, and that caused more trouble than it was worth. As to the proposal itself, the requirement that members are not required to conduct a search of their patent portfolios is very suspicious. That encourages misdirection by participants in W3C meetings. Disclosure must be enforceable against corporate members, not the individual participants. John Nagle Animats 999 Woodland Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:21:07 UTC