Revised W3C Patent Policy Out, Comments Invited 95
Janet Daly, W3C writes "Today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began what it expects to be the final review of the proposed Royalty-Free Patent Policy. A new draft has been published; the review period has been extended to allow for
public and W3C Member comments alike. Review closes 30 April 2003. The press release and summary give a short version of goals and changes of the policy."
FSF's position (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FSF's position (Score:1)
The FSF's example of a Koqueror version that parses URLs and a server-side script that do the same thing seems a bit contrived. Wouldn't the server-side script be considered an implementation of the standard as well, even though it eventually acts as a clien
Re:FSF's position (Score:2)
Re:FSF's position (Score:2)
The FSF's position still doesn't make sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does that mean... (Score:2, Insightful)
the American web or the UK web or the Chinese web or the Austrailian web or the japanese web or the other 260 nations that are online's web ?
Americans forget while living in their bubbles there is a thing called the "World" and their patents and laws dont extend to most of it, so go ahead make all the laws and patents you like, no one is going to follow them especially the chinese/russians etc etc
people cant even follow w3c recomendations as it is
Re:Who's web??... (Score:1)
Re:Who's web??... (Score:1)
Re: the book (Score:1)
Re:Does that mean... (Score:3, Informative)
That's about the stupidest thing I've seen today (not counting usual Slashdot trolling). This is a license that applies to standards developped by the W3C. It prevents the big companies that participate in W3C workgroups to claim ownership of standards that they developped/helped develop. It says nothing about anything that isn't a W3C standard.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Software patenting is hot debated issue, but what about "ordinary" patents?
I've found an interesting link to an article totally against patents:
http://fare.tunes.org/articles/patents.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
However, where a field has a high cost of entry, e.g., designing improved bridges, then the investment necessary for improvements in the art won't happen without some reasonable form of recompense. Patents are the way our society has traditionally choosen to handle this job. It avoids the necessity for the government to decide just how much an invention, or work on
w3c standards don't matter to Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:w3c standards don't matter to Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:w3c standards don't matter to Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:w3c standards don't matter to Slashdot (Score:1)
hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
my thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
One question is, how binding is this? If a member of the W3C patents a process then starts telling people to pay up (a few years down the line, maybe), is this really any protection?
Re:my thoughts (Score:2)
subtle difference (Score:2)
W3C has its power because of the good will of the community, deserved because they usually do a good job.
If they start to get all crazy on us, we can safely ignore them and form another standards organization. It's a good incentive for them not to get all crazy on us, should such an idea ever cross their minds.
Re:my thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it is. If you are part of a standard's committee, and part of the committee's rules of participation state that you must disclose (and/or license at little or no cost) any intellectual property rights that are relevant to a standard you're involved in, then you can't submarine IP and expect to collect on it. It's been rule
Re:my thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
However, the most important effect will be that members will have to "put up or shut up." From this standpoint this is a good step. A member who knows that a standard it is contributing to will incorporate subj
Re:my thoughts (Score:2)
Explain these things to me (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I'm just stuck in the last century, because I don't really understand the whole thing. I didn't have the patience to read the draft, but I read the press release, and I'm scratching my head over the whole idea of software patents. It's been a long time since I did any coding (anyone working with the 6502 any more?) but I seem to remember that there were always an infinite number of ways to accomplish any programming task. How do you patent one way, and then claim that no one's allowed to use another way to do the same thing? Or am I completely confused here? (I admit that this is almost a certainty.)
As a writer, I can't help but make comparisons with copyright law, another form of abstract intellectual property protection. If you're a writer, you can't copyright ideas. If I want to write a book about a great white whale, I can. I can even call it Moby Dick, and not just because Melville's copyright has expired. Titles cannot be copyrighted. So how come, for example, the .gif standard can be patented?
Of course, I may have completely misunderstood all of this. In which case, never mind.
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:2)
There is lots of money to be made from software patents, so it dosnt matter how stupid the idea is- it will work.
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:5, Informative)
GIFs aren't patented. A compression algorithm used in GIFs is (the LZW algorithm). The GIMP (and perhaps other graphic manipulation software) allow you to create uncompressed GIFs, which are perfectly legal.
I don't think gif is a standard anyway, nor has it ever been one.
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:4, Interesting)
I appreciate the clarification, but this is exactly what I'm wondering about. How do you patent an algorithm and then attach it to a process that could be performed by another algorithm just as capably? I understand the logistics problems here-- if your browser attempts to open an image compressed by an unknown algorithm, it can't. And I think I understand why the royalty-free patent standard is being proposed-- as a defensive measure against stuff being admitted to the standard and then used to extort fees from programmers who use the stuff.
I just don't understand the logical basis for software patents.
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:2)
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:2)
From the patenter's point of view, you patent "LZW compression in a GIF" (or some other "process"), then go after anyone writing GIFs. You get to court and after legal fees and court costs go "Ooops, my bad, I had no idea they didn't use LZW". Small companies settle out of court, just to avoid the chance that the judge was smoking something just before the trial or because they have no clue whether they
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:2)
Now my understanding is that clerks are essentially paid by the number of patents they grant (well, their performance evalu
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:1)
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:2)
Yeah, it does. And I'm somewhat reassured to discover that I haven't fallen into the rabbit hole all by myself. From what you say, software patents are just another manifestation of the madness of crowds, and have no basis in rationality.
Good enough for me. I'll just try not to think about it. I'm confused enough as it is.
Slashdot - News for Lawyers (Score:1)
I know enough about programming and network administration and such, but patent law just doesn't have any logic to it as far as I can tell.
Re:Explain these things to me (Score:1)
>because I don't really understand the whole
>thing. I didn't have the patience to read the
>draft, but I read the press release, and I'm
>scratching my head over the whole idea of
>software patents.
I bet.
>It's been a long time since I did any coding
>(anyone working with the 6502 any more?)
I write a program that emulates a 6502-based computer (Apple
>but I seem to remember that there were always an
>infinite number of
License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Does that mean that the following can happen:
Re:License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:1)
Therefore, although the lawsuit does not have to be related to the particular W3C standard that is subject to the license, it must be related to a patent governing a W3C standard.
Re:License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:1)
Does the "for infringement of claims" restrict this only to infringement suits on other patents?
What would happen, for instance, in a firefight over copyright license? Particularly if the suit is over an open-source license where patents are implicated?
Re:License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:1)
Re:License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:2)
Re:License revocation on lawsuit . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Since other folks clarified that the suit needs to be about patents that are claimed to be essential for implementing W3C specifications, it just remains to fill out point 1 and swap A and B in your point 4:
1. Entities A, B ..Z implement a W3C standard, in the process receiving a royalty-free license for some implicated technology from Entities A, B ...Z.
4. B sues A on a related matter, for example they claim a patent on some essential W3C technology
As a result:
5. A sends B their new license terms for t
Re:Changes Nothing (Score:1)
anonymous coward said
Which - relinquishing their rights or being altruistic? Because contrary to your assertion, altruism (while being possible) is not the sole reason. Limiting their liability to patent infringement lawsuits is one big, sound reason. The people that designed the specification (remember, W3C designs these specs it does not just rubber stamp them) are the ones
Enforceable? (Score:1)
Like all/any the other insane EULA's, web patents and service agreements floating out there, how is this enforceable? Like previous posts, w3c can't even 'enforce' the html standard. I'm sure that enforcing anything web related is high on the FBI's list of priorities.
Re:Enforceable? (Score:1)
You will notice that W3C standards are called "recommendation". They're not supposed to be enforced in any way. This License, however, seems to me more like a contract. By making your patented technlogy into a W3C standard you agree that you lose the right to collect royalties for this technology in areas covered by the standard. The patent holder relinquishes his rights willingly, and this license is there to make sure that the patent holder doesn't change it's mind once the standard is everywhere, like it
Re:Enforceable? (Score:1)
Simple solution (Score:2, Redundant)
gif not lossless (Score:2)
Re:gif not lossless (Score:1)
But if your image has more than 256 colours, you'll have to convert it into a 256-colour image format before you can even contemplate making it into a GIF.
"Lossy" is a way of describing data compression schemes, not colour depths, and the loss you get from converting to a 256-colour GIF is the same kind of loss you'd get if you decided to make a 256-colo
Responsibility to the community (Score:4, Insightful)
BUT, IMHO, as soon as you try to make it a "standard" - thus forcing the world to use it, you should be required to make it royalty free and fully documented. There is a certain responsibility to the larger community for any organization or company that finds itself in this possition.
Information is too important to risk limiting its exchange. Case-in-point: M$ word documents. The "defacto standard" for document exchange is Microsoft's Office formats. However, the formats aren't fully documented and are at risk of changing with every new version of office. We would love to be able to ditch Office for an open-source (open format) solution, but we deal with other companies and government agencies who expect documents in Office format and send documents in Office format to us. It's a catch 22. We can't move to an open standard format without having a (redundant) system to be able to communicate with "the other 95%".
M$ has every right to sell their products. They have worked hard on them. However, because the formats have become the "standard", (and Microsoft has been doing everything it can to make it that way), M$ should be forced to open the format and fully document it, so that others don't have to reverse engineer it every time, to inter-operate. An open standard does not preclude MS from selling office. If it is the best product, it will sell. But an open standard for document exchange will allow true competition, and hence greater product improvement, by allowing software companies to compete on the technical merits of their products instead of on a closed format.
The same concept goes for audio and video. If you're going to call it a "standard" you shouldn't be able to charge for it. Charge for your product, not for the method of data exchange.
My $.02
Re:Responsibility to the community (Score:1)
An algorithm or formula is a prefect example of an idea which can be expressed in only o
Re:Responsibility to the community (Score:2)
Re:Responsibility to the community (Score:1)
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet Explorer is NOTORIOUS for not following standards. Ever wonder why so many DHTML-heavy sites won't work in Mozilla? They follow Internet Explorer's "standards" and use workarounds for all the bugs in Internet Explorer's page renderer, rather than making normal code that is more compatible with alternative browsers.
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:2)
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:2)
So IE with its huge marketshare can call itself a standard, but that doesn't make them the real standard, since documents issued by an existing authority (the w3c) exist outlining what exactly the standard is.
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:2)
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:2)
Just yesterday I was learning XHTML+SMIL [w3.org] and found this MS technology called HTML+TIME [microsoft.com] (check the page, they even link to draft of XHTML+SMIL). Now, the funny bit is that XHTML+SMIL Profile W3C Note is authored by Microsoft but regardless of that, their implemention in form of HTML+TIME does differ from the W3C version quite a bit. What should we think when Microsoft helps W3C to author new specs and in the same time they implement totally incompa
Re:Who follows W3C anyways? (Score:1)
Possibly 95% (seems a little high, please post your source) of the desktop computer market. Desktop computers whose sales growth has slackened off to pretty much flat over the last couple of years.
Compare this with the handheld PDA and mobile phone markets, whose growth is accelerating and whose lower cost and lower complexity make them more availabile to the populatrion at large.
Add a strategy to ensure we have just one Web - no more 'this is the handheld site' nonsense - people still get to share URLs
Re:This isn't going to work... (Score:2)
Re:This isn't going to work... (Score:1)
You are missing some important points here. Possibly you are confusing royalty free licensing with open source software.
There is plenty of scope for innovation - just, not at the expense of interoperability. Implementors are free to make things faster, more robust, easier to use, and so forth (including using any patented techniques that they own or have licensed). Which can of course generate the ching ching - better products get better reviews and sell more copies. And there can be open source implement
.net framework (Score:1)
Spot the Difference (Score:1)
5.3. PAG Conclusion
After appropriate consultation, the PAG may conclude:
1. The initial concern has been resolved, enabling the Working Group to continue.
2. The Working Group should be instructed to consider designing around the identified claims.
3. The Team should seek further information and evaluation, including and not limited to evaluation of the patents in question or the terms under which acceptable licensing may be available.
4. The Working Group s
Much better (Score:2)
Of course, this depends on it being binding on the committee members, and their companies, but
Adam Warner's W3C Patent policy page - NO TO RAND (Score:2)
exceptions encourage "evil" (Score:1)
The problem is, announcing this up front could still encourage companies (who want to make money) to try patenting things and springing them further down the road (before it becomes an official standard but after everybo
Nasty "field of use" restriction is still there (Score:2)
From section 5. W3C Royalty-Free (RF) Licensing Requirements:
This mean