- From: Daniel Boos <boos@trash.net>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 23:23:18 +0200
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Hello, I partly disagree with your patent policy. I just want to stress out some reasons, why you should be extremely cautious facing the issue of patents. First of all an included patent in standard is a Trojan Horse. Where do you know that the holder of the patent does not change his policy? What happens if he changed his mind or even the company changed the owner and this owner changes his mind? The future of a patent holder is always unsure... Remember the case of Unysis and the Patent for LZW ( http://www.cloanto.com/users/mcb/19950127giflzw.html). Many companies will be interested that there patent will be included in to a standard. It is a good and easy way to ensure that everybody is using your patent and getting money for it. So companies are interested that there patents will be used. It is not in there interest, that the best standard will succeed. No it is in there interest to get money for their patents. So they or their employees will propose their patents and not the best solutions. So this works against getting a good standard. Different worldwide standards of patent policy. At the moment for example there is still a major difference in patentability in software in Europe and the United States. In Europe it is not clear if software will be patented or not. So maybe your concept of equal access could not be granted, because there are different national laws toward patents. Some more in favor for patents holders , some more in favor of open source developers etc. Before there is no standard you cannot succeed with your policy. You cannot be sure if TRIPS really will be implemented. If you still think about including patents in standards, please include the following rules: - A patent in question should not be required for compliance with a recommendation. - Always search an alternative. There are always some alternatives and sometimes you have to make unpopular decision to keep out a patent. - No royalties for patents if the patent is just used for implementing the standard. - No royalties for patents for Open Source Software. I think there are many other arguments against a to friendly policy towards patents. You should really consider them. Best regards Daniel Boos
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 17:23:56 UTC