Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Patents Your Rights Online

W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy 70

Posted by michael from the doing-the-right-thing dept.
Jeff Heaton writes: "Looks like W3C is backing down on allowing companies to charge royalties for technologies that are incorporated into a W3C standard. In a controversial proposal made public last fall, the consortium debated whether to allow companies to charge royalty fees if their technologies are used in a standard." The new draft is online.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy More

W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy

Comments Filter:
  • Could this possibly be used by companies as an excuse NOT to incorporate their technology in W3C standards? Whatever their motivation not to do so might be.

    • Re:Excuse for companies? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ducon Lajoie ( 30475 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @12:33PM (#3070812)
      It could be an excuse indeed for some companies to avoid using W3C as a standard defining organisation and try to go to different forums that offer seemingly better financial incentives.

      The question now for the W3C (and any other SDO for that matters) is: what do they want their standards/recommendations to be?

      Do they target wide adoption and compliance? Do they care about the development of the medium? Do they want to allow the possibility of occasionaly creating de facto monopolies and cash cows for people who manage to tie their intellectual property rights to some standard? Do they have enough confidence in the strengh and credibility of their organization to take a strong stance regarding IPR issues?

      It's not an easy decision for the W3C, it is even harder for SDOs like the ISO, the ITU or others that rely on their members contribution (for standard development and financial contributions).

      As a side note, the whole issue of patents on software is far from settled in many jurisdictions. W3C standards have an international appeal and there is a huge liability issue regarding the non enforceability of such patents on a worldwide basic. This issue can't be looked at with an american law background only.

  • a large number of issues raised by comments from W3C Members and the general public.

    That is so much more polite than "We got caught and got our ass reamed.

    The Gardener

    • So true (Score:2, Insightful)

      by .sig ( 180877 )
      But the sad thing is that this really is news. How often does public outcry actually get something changed? (Other than that who Star Wars/nSync fiasco)

      And just when I though complaining about something wouldn't do any good...
      [END HUMOR]

      • Re:So true (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Control Group ( 105494 )
        How often does public outcry actually get something changed?

        Pretty often, really. But only when it's based on fear, ignorance, or spite. When the public outcry is based on a rational reason, it almost never gets heard. Probably because so many people don't take the time to think rationally, preferring to simply accept whatever is spoon-fed them by [RIAA|MPAA|Government|etc.] right up until it nails them personally.

        Pretty much everyone, however, has an emotional response to inflammatory rhetoric. Just look at how people respond on everyone's favorite site whenever some sort of pro-[Windows|MS|Proprietary software|etc.] comment gets posted.

  • Not quite yet... (Score:4, Informative)

    by MrWinkey ( 454317 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @12:17PM (#3070682) Homepage
    They are not backing down just quite yet.

    The draft is not the final say on the matter. A "last call" draft will be published later this year, at which point the public and W3C members will submit comments. A final decision from the director of the W3C is hoped for by the end of the year, said W3C spokeswoman Janet Daly.

    So there is at least a year before it's totaly dead and gone and it may even come back if the members push it enough or somebody does. Thusly this is a victory but the battle isnt over yet.

    • Their intent is still the same. The 11 points for inclusion of patented methods into W3C standards are anything but clear, but the upshot is a restatement of RAND as Royalty Free. If the use of a patent as a patent may be used is too restrictive for their standards they should simply not use or encourage patents.

      The terms used are still vauge, and what the first condition means is NOT DEFINED:

      A Royalty-Free license shall mean a non-assignable, non-sublicensable license to make, have made, use, have used, sell, have sold, offer to sell, import, and distribute and dispose of implementations of the Recommendation that:

      1. shall be available to all implementers of the specification worldwide, whether or not they are W3C Members;

      That and other conditions leave lots of room for abuse. Would a no cost add-in to Micro$haft's Visual $tudio count as available? Might they standardize MP3 because it is "available" to all? Availability is not always usable, especially if the tools of use are in some way encumbered. It does me little good if I can unencode something if I can't turn around and create content.

      The Patent Policy Working Group believes that the RF license as proposed is compatible with all major Open Source licenses except the GPL. We are still working on GPL-related issues.

      They have a lot of work to do and I'd like to see what "Open Source" support they have besides their belief system. The crux of their thinking is this:

      A claim is necessarily infringed hereunder only when it is not possible to avoid infringing it because there is no non-infringing alternative for implementing the required portions of the Recommendation. Existence of a non-infringing alternative shall be judged based on the state-of-the-art at the time the specification becomes a Recommendation.

      There is always an alternative! If there is not, the law and patent process is broken. Laws and standards should bend towards morals rather than morals and standards bend toward broken laws. W3C should not lend it's support to broken laws.

      • Please send your comments to www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org . W3C reads and responds to public comment. Public comments will give the free software representatives on the board support to make the changes we need.

        Bruce

  • of microsoft loosing their grip?

    One can only hope...

  • more details, background (Score:3, Informative)

    by simonstl ( 42816 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @12:20PM (#3070717) Homepage

    I wrote a story at xmlhack [xmlhack.com] on the new draft this morning. It's got some extra details and links to background information. The exception handling process looks like it'll be the area to watch [oreillynet.com].

    • Indeed. I read the current draft and found that while I had much, much less issues with the current incarnation than with previous ones, I saw many loopholes in the exception process. Frankly speaking (no pun intended), I don't think some of the exceptions are really needed and leave it open for the hijinx that we saw coming with the first attempts- it's just a little harder to pull a fast one on the public at large with this proposal.

  • Huh??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @12:21PM (#3070723) Homepage Journal
    ... whether to allow companies to charge royalty fees if their technologies are used in a standard

    The consortium cannot tell a company whether it can charge fees for its technology. I think what they meant was that the Consortium will not accept a technology as a standard if there are fees involved. That's a bit different.

    • Re:Huh??? (Score:2, Informative)

      by p7 ( 245321 )
      All they are saying is if someone is entitled to royalties for a technology that might be added to the standard, they will get a legally binding promise not to collect the royalties, before putting it into the standard.
  • It would appear that revisions of the W3C's patent policies is becoming a frequent task... As you can see here [w3.org], W3C's patent practices were changed barely more that a month ago of January 24, 2002.

    Additionally, you can see what the Slashdot community had to say about it then in this [slashdot.org] article posting!!!

    Have fun...and I guess I'll see you all back here in about a month or so for the next revision... ;-)

  • Well, the goose that lays the golden eggs gets at least a temporary reprive. You would think that just about anybody would be intelligent enough to figure our that open standards are the very reason that there even IS a viable WWW

    • Not entirely... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Svartalf ( 2997 )
      They altered it so that the preferred mode is RF licensing on tech for W3C reccomendations- but left it open for the Working Groups to accept tech that is RAND or otherwise licensed and specified timelines for when they forfeit any right to inist upon the non-RF licensing. They dropped RAND from the discussion, but with the stated exception process, they all but said the term again. It's, of course, up to the working groups and there's defined timelines so there will be a much smaller likelyhood of a Rambus/JEDEC situation where they submarine a few patents on a real standard, so it's nowhere near as bad as things go. I don't really think they went far enough, to be honest, but it's much better than what they attempted to foist off on us previously.

  • Patents should live outside of standards (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kingpin2k ( 523489 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @12:32PM (#3070803)
    "There is still an open question of what's going to happen in the case that we run into tech that's only available for a fee. That could happen regardless of what our policy is. We still have to sort out what happens in that exceptional case," he said. God only knows how many non-standard "features" that IE implements. This fact has failed to crash the net. I assume if browser makers wished to do the same with patented technology, they certainly could. It would probably be hard to keep giving the things away, though.
  • The W3C makes recommendations. If their recommendation is used by enough people it is a defacto standard, but it still isn't a W3C "Standard"
  • Finally. A standards organization is actually trying to prevent companies from making more money. Charging royalties for developed technologies within W3 standards is ridiculous, and although it might provide financial encouragement to developers, the fact remains that the web already costs enough money to run, and corporations with the finances to develop more technologies should be doing so anyway. There is more to business than just making money anyway. Generosity is a good asset in a company.

    org9

    • Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)

      by J. Random Software ( 11097 )
      There's nothing wrong with making money. But since the World-Wide Web is about universal access and platform independence, if your business model involves controlling who may use a technology and how, it has no business being recommended by W3C.
  • Remember the MPEG4 story a while back? They wanted to charge hourly rates for streaming video or something like that. Every time you used mpeg4 you had to pay. Well does MPEG4 fall under the W3C's definition of a standard and if so, does this mean they can't charge those rates after all?
    • The World-Wide Web Consortium doesn't have any particular influence over the Motion Picture Experts Group, and video compression is such a minefield of patents that a free standard is probably impossible (though I wish luck to the Ogg Tarkin [xiph.org] team).
    • All this means is W3C won't put it in as part of the standard if MPEG does not sign a contract to not enforce royalties on its use as part of the standard. So, no this will not be a way to skirt the charges. W3C can't force anyone to give up thier rights to royalties.

    • MPEG is an ISO activity, not a W3C one. As far as I can tell, ISO (International Organization for Standardization, not an acronym, www.iso.ch [www.iso.ch]) doesn't have a patent policy a sfar as I am aware.

      Since I work at W3C, and since this is public information, I can tell you that no, the W3C has never wanted to publish specifications (recommendations) that are encumbered by patents or royalties. However, we don't have any authority over the MPEG committee.

      (I am Liam Quin, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin [w3.org]; I am in the XML activity and not directly involved in the patent policy group, so send comments about that to the public list not to me.)

  • Charging for standards, or even make them unknown to the public (if that were possible), would cause others to create new standards. I.e. Windows audio. If asf compressed down twice as much as mp3 at the same bit rate and such, everyone would want it. Question is, would everyone get it. There's no support for many OSs.

    What would happen if WC3 started charging? People would develop their own technologies, or use wc3 "illegally". People being MS, Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, a small group of develoeprs...

  • Free Software Representatives on the Policy Board (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @02:15PM (#3071552) Homepage Journal
    Three Free Software representatives are on the W3C Patent Policy Board:
    • I should point out that I'm not representing HP, and although they can ask nicely, they can't tell me what to do on the board. They have Scott Peterson of HP Legal representing them. Peterson is the attorney assigned to Free Software issues within the company and is very cognizant of the GPL, etc.

      Bruce

  • There is still an open question of what's going to happen in the case that we run into tech that's only available for a fee.

    Might I humbly suggest that in that case they sit on their ass doing nothing. Or twiddle their thumbs. Or stick their thumbs up their butt. Prefferably all three at once.

    -
  • Exception Handling:
    Invited experts are not entitled to participate in the PAG [Patent Advisory Group]

    If I read it right, when they want to use RAND they create a PAG to discuss the issue, and everyone who is anti-RAND is going to be excluded from participation!

    Am I hallucinating, or is "Exception Handling" just a fancy name for Railroading-RAND-Around-Objections?

    -
  • "...computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film..."

    No, they absolutely must not. Devices i own in my home will do what i say and nothing else. They will answer to me and only me. I've had enough of this with DVD (They can decide what you can fast-forward through for gods sake). Any system that relies on this is completely flawed and anyone who designs it is a fool. I don't know why people allowed DVD to get away with this but the general public sure as hell better not let anything else like this through. It goes against the entire Open Source philosophy.
  • I just had a comment deleted for threats against the president of the USA. I hope threatening the President of the MPAA is still legal, cause i want to kill him ;)

    (slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28127&cid=3023341)

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close