Draft policy not ideal but acceptable

To whom it may concern:

I have reviewed over the Royalty-Free Patent Policy
W3C Working Draft 14 November 2002 and while I'm not
thrilled with Section 3, the draft is a significant
improvement over the prior ones considering RAND
terms. I accept the draft though I'm not particularly
pleased with it as it sits. My concerns are several:

1. An 'embrace and extend' strategy where the patent
holder gets the technology implemented into W3C
standards then extends it outside of W3C standards to
where it is adopted by the world but not presented or
accepted by the W3C, thus avoiding the royalty free
coverage via the patent policy.

2. I feel the 3.9 should be changed to "9. The RF
license shall be made available by the licensor from
the point of the Recommendation on, even if the
Recommendation is rescinded".  3.10 covers some of
this, though sometimes to support legacy, additional
licenses need to be created. There is no protection
for additional licenses for legacy support as written.


Most of my prior objections (RAND) have been corrected
(see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/1512
) and the new patent policy is a great improvement. To
overuse the already over used "Information
Superhighway" analogy, open standards prevent the
establishment of patent 'toll booths' in Internet
protocols. The W3C to date has been good about
maintaining the open standards beneficial to both most
proprietary and open software, and users in general.
The conditional acceptance of patented technology in
Internet protocols needs to be monitored, maintained,
and improved to assure there is no potential for
abuse. Here is where my greatest concerns are, abuse
and loopholes beyond the intent of W3C Royalty-Free
(RF) Licensing Requirements (section 3).

Openness is what has made the Internet great. Let's
keep it open.


-Brock Frazier
 Boise, Idaho USA


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Received on Monday, 6 January 2003 08:34:23 UTC