Re: Scope of W3C patent policy with regard to partial implementations of standards

On 5/29/2012 11:41 PM, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>
> On 28 May 2012, at 10:12 PM, Peter Junge wrote:
>
>> Dear Sirs and Madams,
>>
>> I'm writing you on behalf of my employer Beijing Sursen Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (http://www.sursen.com/english/index.htm).
>>
>> Sursen is implementing and using SVG (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/) in several of its products. Some of those products do not implement the SVG specification completely, but only use profiles and subsets. These profiles and subsets are retaining compatibility to SVG and do not add any kind of extensions. Our questions is if the the W3C Patent Policy (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/) is also valid for our products, even though they do not implement SVG entirely.
>
> Hello Peter,
>
> According to the W3C Patent Policy, if there are patents, Royalty-Free commitments are given for implementations of SVG. Whether implementation of a subset or profile of SVG can be considered an implementation of SVG is a legal matter whose answer may vary according to jurisdiction. W3C currently does not take a position on the question.

Hello Ian,

thanks a lot for the quick reply. I can understand that the W3C does not 
make any point with regard to such general concern.

Just one further question: in case of legal trouble who will be deciding 
if an artifact is an implementation of SVG or not. Will the W3C be 
contacted for advice or is everything in the hands of the judge or jury. 
The latter would of course imply that not even a 100% compliant 
implementation of SVG is safe against miscarriage of justice.

Best regards,
Peter

>
> Regards,
>
> Ian
>
> --
> Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
> Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447
>

Received on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 02:10:19 UTC