Patent Policy

Dear PPWG,

Please reconsider any proposal to apply the W3C imprimatur to
standards which contain non-royalty free patents.

The Internet and the WWW are such incredible successes precisely
because the infrastructure layers are largely patent-free. Time and
again the market has chosen non-encumbered standards and protocols
over ones with IP claims.

It seems that the great burst of innovation and entrepreneurial
activity the Internet and the WWW has spawned over the last decade
would have been impossible if individuals and small organisations were
denied their opportunity to participate due to license fees. These
license fees may be "reasonable" to companies which can afford to
patent their innovations, but are absolutely crushing to the new
entrants who drive innovation hardest.

The PPWG should be reviewing patent policy, with an eye to further
ensuring that no encumbered technology makes it into W3C standards or
recommendations.  The necessity of this is demonstrated by the recent
surge in the use of undisclosed "submarine" patents in standards
bodies.

I urge the PPWG to consider the effect of its decisions on the many
small innovaters. Please ensure that any patented technology approved
by the W3C is licensed on a royalty-free basis.

Regards,
Damien Miller

-- 
| Damien Miller <djm@mindrot.org> \ ``E-mail attachments are the poor man's 
| http://www.mindrot.org          /   distributed filesystem'' - Dan Geer

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 19:59:49 UTC