- From: David Green <dgreen@uab.edu>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 13:25:46 -0500
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
This is a short note (I have only heard of the proposal today -- the last day to comment) to register my serious concern on these proposed rules. This is a major change in philosophy and intent of the W3C and urge rejection of this policy especially with the present time frame. There is no consideration for not-for-profit use of the web standards which have been a critical contributor to the progress thus far and potentially a significant contributor in the future provided this box-out mechanism is not developed. Clearly, not-for-profit (especially the 'freely available without charge' component) can not fund patent fees if they are contributing their work for use by others. The 'non-discriminatory' wording actually seems to preclude special treatment even if individual patent holders wished to pursue this. Second, I would submit that the (at least the US) patent process is out of control and has allowed patenting of concepts, which in my opinion, that clearly don't meet earlier definitions and purposes of patents nor do they serve the public interest. Between this, the world wide patent issues and the fact that this is a fundamental change in principle of the W3C, I urge W3C to continue its present rules even if that limits the available standards. This change of charter clearly will reduce the stature of the W3C in many venues and while it may commoditize the Web, certain players including those who have contributed the original concepts which all of this is based and who continue to be a significant source of innovation are going to be excluded from participating in portions of what will be so-called open standards. I urge the W3C to retreat from this plan and explore other ways that are inclusive of the academic and (free) open source communities. Sincerely, David Green dgreen@uab.edu (I am a Inst. Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at UAB but the comments above are my own and both UAB & the E&CE Department do not necessarily agree with the above statements.)
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:25:55 UTC