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Patents Your Rights Online

W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy 112

Posted by timothy from the weasel-avoidance dept.
egoff writes "According to ComputerWorld, the Patent Policy Working Group at the W3C is ready to release a new proposal for dealing with technology patents that get in the way of creating web standards. While making no comment, the W3C was seeking public input for its Royalty Free Patent Policy until April 30th."
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W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy More

W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy

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  • If I don't like their new patent policy (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I plan to patent it and stop them from using it!

  • Hey... (Score:5, Funny)

    by craenor ( 623901 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:18PM (#5994662) Homepage
    I thought Bezos already had this patent...

  • Pre-emptive Strike (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Geekenstein ( 199041 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:20PM (#5994671)
    Its a good move to hold patents like this, if for no other reason than quick resolution to silly patents granted by the USPTO. But that's pretty much stating the obvious, eh?
    • Hold patemts like what? RTFA! I can't believe comments like this get modded up.
    • I thought that one of the requirements for granting patents was a demonstration of no prior art. So maybe another approach would be to have a central location (maybe on a patent office website) for people to register their ideas that they wanted to share but not be patented. This would timestamp the idea but also allow private companies to go ahead as normal with patents and making money without trying to do it by stealing other people's ideas! And incidentally give the patent office(s) somewhere to search

  • Rationale for new patent policy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:20PM (#5994682)
    The radical growth of the Internet has been achieved largely because of the freedom of its developers to use the tools they felt necessary to implement the services that have become standards. While it is true that Free Software to a large part has been helpful to the process, I feel that forcing developers to avoid technologies that are patent-encumbered will promote the Free Software agenda at the expense of freedom: freedom to create the very technologies that allowed Free Software to thrive in the first place!

    Isn't this an example of putting the cart before the horse? Free Software is great and all, but true freedom comes from not handing control of everything to one faction... something I would think would be obvious to other supporters of open source software. A monopoly over the Internet is just as bad in the hands of OSS developers as it would be in the hands of Microsoft.
    • ok, what about the concept of open and free do you not get? Nothing should be standardized and patent encumbered if it's to become standard.. web standards should be like air, they should be free for all... wait, they sell air in cans now. nm, we've already sold out as a society, carry on then.

    • Re:Rationale for new patent policy (Score:5, Informative)

      by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:38PM (#5994782) Homepage Journal
      The W3C is a standards body. The patent-free policy is to allow OSS/free software to even EXIST. Even the slightest patent royalty immediately kills the possibility of (legal) free software. In a patent free ecosystem, for-profit and not-for-profit software compete on equal footing. Allow even one patent with royalty fees, even as low as $0.01 a unit, and that ecosystem is gone, free software cannot exist by definition, much less compete. As for your monopoly argument, you are blurring patents with software. A patent (in this case) is a concept or methodology. There is no grant of monopoly to OSS. A monopoly grant would be that all software that abides by W3C standards MUST be open sourced. There is no such implication here, in fact OSS is not even mentioned anywhere in the clause. Please tell me that this is a troll?
      • There is no rationale for the proposed W3C patent policy.

        GSM (the European mobile phone standard) is the world's most successful standard, used by 750 million people the world over.

        GSM is covered by hundreds, if not thousands of patents, owned by dozens of entities - large, medium, and small. Most of these patents are made available under RAND licensing policies, some are not and are bitterly contested.

        And yet, GSM exists. And thrives. And grows.

        Any argument that patents would be "death" to W3C eith

        • The situation with GSM is that the main player cross-licence each other which reduces the net licence fees per handset/base station/etc. If you are not already in there with a stack of patents, the licences required present a significant barrier to entry into the market.

          The nature of a mobile phone system means that effective implementation involves careful hardware design as much as software design. Consequently, you do not generally find people knocking up GSM handsets as a hobby. Also, as transmitti

          • kogs, yes there are essential differences in GSM and the web, but at the end of the day the question is, what is the best way to provide services to users? this is always the basic economic question.

            despite the differences between the economic models for GSM and the Web, i pay more or less the same price today for GSM service as i do for my Web access (using ADSL) - about 35 evros a month. since both are of equal value to me, from a consumer's perspective, this is reasonable.

            all i am saying is that ther

      • Yeah , but can you sue opensource ... in all definintion no one "Owns" Opensource ...

    • A patent is a monopoly (Score:5, Informative)

      by smiff ( 578693 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @07:09PM (#5994950)
      Free Software is great and all, but true freedom comes from not handing control of everything to one faction... something I would think would be obvious to other supporters of open source software. A monopoly over the Internet is just as bad in the hands of OSS developers as it would be in the hands of Microsoft.

      What part of the word monopoly do you not understand? A patent is a monopoly granted by the government. The whole purpose of an industry standard is that anybody can implement it. The point of a royalty-free patent standard is to insure that no monopoly power is exercised over W3C standards.

      If you allow RAND or other non-royalty-free patent policies, then open source software will be shut out of the standard. You may call that freedom. I call your words doublespeak.

    • I feel that forcing developers to avoid technologies that are patent-encumbered will promote the Free Software agenda at the expense of freedom: freedom to create the very technologies that allowed Free Software to thrive in the first place!

      There is nothing preventing proprietary software from competing in this space. They just can't force their only competition to be proprietary by allowing for patented technologies to be embedded in the "standard".

      If they want to compete on quality of software, let the
    • A monopoly over the Internet is just as bad in the hands of OSS developers as it would be in the hands of Microsoft.

      Where do you get the idea that no patent meant an OSS monopoly? Currently, there's not patent in HTML. Does that mean that there's no probrietary browser. On the other hand, just imagine if MS (or any other) had a key patent in HTML. Yes, *that* would be a catastropy, not only for OSS but for many other companies.
  • It's about time!

  • April 30? (Score:4, Funny)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) * <[numbski] [at] [hksilver.net]> on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:22PM (#5994690) Homepage Journal
    Good to know they gave us so much time to comment...

    Negative numbers or division by 0 and core dump? :)

  • Not what we need. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:23PM (#5994692)
    We don't need a new proposal for dealing with patents, we need to abandon patents altogether.
    • Mod parent insightful.
      Patents have been shown time and time again as a source of significant litigational abuse and also as a barrier to entry for many innovations. They have been stolen from small investors, and big corporations feel free to abuse patents they don't own, and then counter-sue in court and bury the little guys in paper. Not telling others how your process works is the only way to keep things safe for a little while, patents don't help the little guys, they only help the capital rich bohemoths...

      If you can't compete with clones, it's because you have a bad business model, or bad business practices. When's the last time you heard of Denny's(a cheap restaurant) suing Carrows(Another of the same) over selling an item that was too similar, or over making the order process too similar? You haven't, because they can compete with the same products and processes just fine. (Both companies are doing well, AFAIK).

      Patents and punitive litigation are both seemingly good ideas that have been more than abused, at least where I live(USA).

      • Re:Not what we need. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @07:11PM (#5994964) Homepage
        It would be almost impossible to get rid of patents.

        Most developed countries have signed the TRIPs agreement, article 33 of which states that patents must be availble for inventions and must last a minimum of 20 years.

        Reduced term patents (3 or 5 years) will not happen due to this World Trade Organisation agreement.

        More realisticly, we can try to prevent the adoption of software patents in europe, thus preventing them from being a completely global "commodiy".

        We can also ask for reform of the patent review system. No country is going to revoke current patents but it could be possible to prevent such frivolous patents in the future.

        Ciaran O'Riordan
      • Read up the case of Enercon (producer of wind power plants).

        They thought that they had such a lead that they wouldn't need to rely on patents.
        Then another company patented Enercons innovations and sued for infringement. That company has AFAIK
        gone out of business. But as a result of an unfair trial, Enercon was disallowed to sell to the US for ten years.

        I think patents are getting abused to a point where it would be better to get rid of them entirely. But you can't opt out.
    • Have you ever invented anything? I know I certainly haven't, however, if I did I would want to be able to make money off of it. A lot of people/companies would not attempt to innovate anything. Your amazing idea would stifle innovation. What might be more useful would be looking at frivilous litigation with respect to patents. Maybe awarding greater monetary compensation for frivilous lawsuits?

      • I did (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zogger ( 617870 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:16PM (#5995614) Homepage Journal
        I did, made some money, and released it into the wild. It's a simple tool, with a new twist.( no need for details, it's a weird industrial niche tool) I invented it, designed it, took it to a machine shop, took all my spare loot, had as many as I could afford made, sold them easily, and that's it. I only made a few hundred bucks from it. I didn't get a patent, although I could have, but for several reasons I didn't. It's too expensive and hard right off the bat, it's insane complicated expensive nutso. I had no desire to make zillions of dollars from it, it was neat enough to see so many people go YES, and adopt it. It's in the wild now, and I know several other companies developed and built their own models, and I have no idea how many thousands are out there in daily use, but that's cool. I even one time saw someone who doesn't even know me using one of my tools on a tv news clip! that was a hoot! When I have the time and space and spare loot and opportunity, I have several more practical ideas kicking around in the old noodle here. I'll probably do the same thing as I did with the other one. I don't code, but I can build things, and design. And I like sharing, it's a nice concept. Yes, it would be sorta nice to make some more money from these efforts, I am perpetually sorta kinda dirt poor, but... I guess that isn't as important to me. Why, I don't know, but I've always been that way. Every time in the past I fixated on "making money" as my primary life goal I noticed it sort of got out of hand quickly, it was changing me to something I don't like to see in other people. So I don't do that anymore. That's as close as I can describe it.

        heard an interesting discussion along these lines the other day. when someone is so fixated on food, we say they have an eating disorder, they are gluttonous, that this can be bad. when someone is so fixated on sex that they go nuts with it, go overboard, when it becomes their main goal, when they lose respect for others and themselves, then we say they become perverse, perhaps, it's considered as not a healthy thing, they've gone beyond what is healthy. When someone has a drink, that's ok, no biggee, when someone drinks every day, it can indicate something, when they are drunk every day, all day long, we say they are alcoholic, and this isn't a good thing.

        Now, if someone makes some money, that's OK. when someone is fixated on it, when it overcomes all their other primary goals, we call it 'being a successful businessman", give them awards, call them "mr ceo".

        Why in the other cases is excessive/compulsive uncontrollable behavior bad, but when it comes to accumulation of money and profits-at-any-cost it automagically becomes "good"? From where I stand, all those are illnesses, the latter called "greed" and "love of money".
      • no, I don't think pattents and copyrights need to exist. people who want to create something for money will be replaced by people who just want to better the world.

        If I invented some new tech that could benifit the world I would most likely make it available to everyone for free, though becasue pattents exist, I would probably register it with the USPTO just so sme preditory company does not steel the idea and patent it for money.

  • Europeans, get your act together (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:26PM (#5994718) Homepage
    Europeans: the EU patents vote will be held on June 18th.

    Don't wait for you opinion to be asked, it won't be.
    Don't wait for the open debate, there isn't any.
    Don't waif for someone else to do it. *Very* few people are doing anything.

    The deal:
    There are 626 MEPs that are going to vote on *your* rights, most of them will have never heard the bad effects of Software Patents. They have been asked to "unify", "harmonise" and "remove legal grey areas" from the European Patent Convention (EPC, article 52). Unless educated, they are going to say "yes" to patents. (M$ have patented their video format in the US, we are never allowed to write a player for their format. Promoting progress?)

    Germany has 99 MEPs
    GB, France, and Italy have 87 MEPs each.
    Ireland has 15
    (I can't remember the other countries of the top of my head)

    Get informed, read the (lengthy) docs at ffii.org and contact your MEPs.

    Ciaran O'Riordan

  • comment period (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:32PM (#5994751) Journal
    it was once of those secret comment periods that was made known only to insiders, and to people with lots of money.

    Me Cynical? not a chance.

    feh

    That way there was no chance of not getting the result they were paid to get.

  • Then stop feeding the W3C (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What matters is whether a technology is patent-free or not. If the W3C is unwilling to promote what matters, then instead of asking whether a standard is "W3C approved" or not, people will ask if it is "patent-free" and no one will care for the W3C.

  • By definition... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:33PM (#5994760) Homepage
    An industry "standard" can't BE a standard unless anyone in the industry can use it.

    Of course, that is contrary to the trend, which is to closed "standards" even blessed by the Feds. For instance: IBOC digital AM/FM radio, adopted by the FCC, and something ALL stations will have to eventually install... It's owned by ONE company, iBiquity, and stations have to pay ROYALTIES to use it.
    • Patents last 21 years in most countries. A company can hold a patent and stay silent until it becomes popular one good example being the LZW compression and the GIF format.

      another example being the JPEG extension that was patented quietly for the last 10 years and then invoked against one of the large digital camera manufacturers (Fujitso?). The patent holder, having done zero development of the research, netted $30 million from the infringement case.

      Also, a company could license the patent under RAND (
  • They will stop people from patenting popups, spam, embedded music in pages, misleading links and all such stuff, and then for charging anyone who uses them for patent violation?! NO WAY!
  • using short words and simple language what this means exactly? Is this basically just a move to stop Amazon.com from going nuts?
    • If you want to get a protocol appproved by the W3C, as a standard for use on the internet, your protocol may not use a pattented (or pattent pending) operation which would require that people using this standard pay you, or another company (the holder of the pattent) ongoing fees.

      This includes, but is not limited to, RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discrimanatory) royalties. The reason that RAND pattents are included is that what is Reasonable or non-discriminatory to one company or developer may not be reasonabl

  • civil disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @07:06PM (#5994930) Homepage
    With open source software do software patents really matter any more?

    Take any software patent for example. Sure, it's patented, but some enterprising young college student (anyone for this matter) makes their own implementation of the patent and releases it on the web as Open Source (and/or Free) software anonymously. That implementation turns out to be really rather decent and becomes widespread, perhaps more widespread than the "official" implementation. Improvements and additions are added (anonymously) and the unofficial becomes the unofficial-official.

    Are the users of the unofficial implementation liable for patent infringement? I'd say no, but I'm not a lawyer. Is the creator liable? Probably, but who'll ever know?

    More pragmatically, would the patent holder go after users of the unofficial implementation? I'd say a more emphatic NO. Maybe if they're a Fortune 500, but in that case who really cares since that realm might as well be on Mars.

    Most pragmatically, would most users of that implementation care that it was technically illegal. I'd say a most emphatic no.

    People using software are mostly individuals and small to medium sized businesses. Without going through a detailed prisoners-dilemma analysis I'd say the odds are you won't get in trouble using a technically illegal implementation and so you shouldn't worry overmuch that you're small corporation will get sued out of existance. In fact, the potential profits will outweigh such potential risk making it a practical no-brainer.

    I see web sites all the time with source that says copyright ..., patent ..., or patent pending..., but who really cares.

    I'm going to get modded down by all the people who are of the mindset that copyright and patents are handed down by god for the benefit of the holder to the detriment of the user. But in reality the space for copyright and patent in the digital age is zero, nada, zip, nothing.

    I view digital violation of copyrights and patents (especially of software) as the new "natural" order and civil disobedience at its most right. I think most other long-time 'net users do as well and are waiting impatiently for the rest of the world to catch up.

    That means whatever policy the W3C comes up with is irrelevant before it goes into print and this whole discussion is moot.

    • Re:civil disobedience (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @07:29PM (#5995075) Homepage Journal
      A re-implementation of a pattented process, is infringement of the pattented process. If you implement a new process that creates MP3 files from raw audio files, and you use the same steps as the pattented process, then the new implementation infringes on the pattented process. This is slightly different from copyright in that it does not require that any of the original code be included to be considered infringement.

      In order for the re-implementation to become popular, it will have to become available. In the open source world that means that it will have to be put up on a public server of some sort. At the moment, I beleive most (if not all of the most popular) development CVS tree servers require that there be a project maintainer who can be contacted for that project.

      If a lawyer for a pattent holder discovers that there is a project using pattented technology on a CVS tree, the maintainer of the CVS tree will most likely be contacted with a cease and desist letter, as will the project leader. If the CVS tree continues to be available, then under the DMCA, as well as a couple of other acts, either, or both would become liable for damages and fines with respect to the pattented process.

      Then again, I am not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to be one. I didn't read the article, and it doesn't appear that you have either.

      -Rusty
      • 1. If I would publish the code under GPL and then people will improve and enhance it, and then they will fork ii, still under GPL - what can you do about it?

        2. Sourceforge doesn't require from me any legal ID: I can host the project under any name I want.

        3. Americans still forget that Internet is not a WAN of USA - it's international. If people around the world will publish the implemetation, that is in infringement of US patent, what is a patent holder going to do about it? Send US Army there?

        Remembe

        • 1. If I would publish the code under GPL and then people will improve and enhance it, and then they will fork ii, still under GPL - what can you do about it?

          Sue you for all the lost sales of my product arising from your distribution of your infringing version. I may not get much but it sure as hell is going to make your life a misery - pour encourager les autres

          2. Sourceforge doesn't require from me any legal ID: I can host the project under any name I want.

          I'll sue SourceForge instead

          3. Americ

          • Ok then, I'll combine all three together: I'll use those my accounts that doesn't have any of my personal ID *AND* I'll publish the code under GPL on Sourceforge/Savanna-like servers colocated in software-patent-free countries. So now what?

            Yes, that's right, I forgot to mention in my previous post: US is the country with the worst patent laws. In many other countries software (code and algorithms) is math and as such it cannot be patented. File and message formats as well as protocols are languages and as

            • Have you ever thought why Linus Torvalds is hosting the tree on BitKeeper in Australia?

              It's hosted by BitKeeper - in San Francisco. Nothing to do with Linus, either: it's a BitKeeper-owned server, along with all their others. For that matter, kernel.org (the main "home" of the kernel) is hosted by the ISC, about 15 minutes' drive from San Francisco Airport. Not only are they not outside the US, both servers are in Linus's home state!

              He, personally, works in Sillicon Valley. But b/c of the collective nat

            • Ok then, I'll combine all three together: I'll use those my accounts that doesn't have any of my personal ID *AND* I'll publish the code under GPL on Sourceforge/Savanna-like servers colocated in software-patent-free countries. So now what?

              Firstly, there is the issue of identifying you. This may or may not be possible. This just a matter of getting evidence rather than legal principle. Someone may even grass you up.

              Secondly, you cannot legally relase the code under the GPL, or any other licence, int

        • Remember PGP? Well, there was no any infringement of the pattented process, but the way how the code has left USA was certainly a violation of US export rules.

          Not true. PGP was exported entirely legally, in printed form (crypto legislation would have barred a disk or CD ROM from being exported, but not a printed copy) then scanned and OCRed. Result: an entirely legal copy of PGP outside the US. Once there, it could be freely compiled and distributed.

          And what has US govt done about to prevent, stop or re

          • I agree, sometimes it's easy to move to alternative algorithm. But the problem is that it's not always economically convinient. And once we talk about economy and competition then don't forget: it's a world of mostly capitalism. I mean the whole world, not just USA.

            I think that there will be more and more cases when some projects will emmigrate to other countries, where Open Source is more appreciated than in USA, where there is no such lobbiing pressure of Microsoft as in USA. And where software is math,

    • Take any software patent for example. Sure, it's patented, but some enterprising young college student (anyone for this matter) makes their own implementation of the patent and releases it on the web as Open Source (and/or Free) software anonymously. That implementation turns out to be really rather decent and becomes widespread, perhaps more widespread than the "official" implementation. Improvements and additions are added (anonymously) and the unofficial becomes the unofficial-official.

      Are the users

    • Take any software patent for example. Sure, it's patented, but some enterprising young college student (anyone for this matter) makes their own implementation of the patent and releases it on the web as Open Source (and/or Free) software anonymously. That implementation turns out to be really rather decent and becomes widespread, perhaps more widespread than the "official" implementation. Improvements and additions are added (anonymously) and the unofficial becomes the unofficial-official.

      Your scenario d

    • I agree with your premise, that people ignoring absurd digital patent and copyright laws is natural and a form of civil disobedience. I think you are being very naive, however, in your assertion that since people are ignoring these (IMO wrong-headed) laws, they aren't really a problem.

      Look at the history of digital copyright laws. At first they were widely ignored on the internet, to the great common benefit... it was possible to get music, lyrics, etc. very convientiently and for free. Gradually, a

      • Nope.

        The fastest way to win is to lose. Let them have their way and reshape the environment how they would choose. While they are doing that organize on our own and create a new environment. The proper environment for people to live in. The proper rule set. Etc. This requires many bright minds and a lot of man-hours. And there's much to draw from. But anyway when the time is right, when everything is almost hopelessly fucked up, then launch a huge propoganda campaign with the right leaders in place
  • I only wish that vendors adhered more closely to the standards. I always develop code to the latest standards including XHTML and CSS2, but it always seems that some browser or product does not implement the standard correctly. Nonetheless, promoting standards instead of patents is definately the way to go.
    • I'm not sure if I agree with you or not but it seems to me that if you hold a patent on a particular technology, then you set the standards for it; inviting a public organ like the w3c to embrase your proposed standard while keeping the fact that you've patented the technology prior to standardization is deceitfull.

      I can understand a company patenting a technology for defensive purposes, unfortunatly when the bottomline goes red, the lawyers decend like vultures and make a mess like we have now. Perhaps wa

  • What happened to royalty free? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smiff ( 578693 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @07:25PM (#5995049)
    Apparently, there's a loophole in the royalty-free standard. Can someone tell me when this happened? From the Computer World article [computerworld.com]:

    But the group also included an exception provision that will make it possible for members to consider alternate licensing terms when it's deemed impossible to meet the royalty-free goal, he said.

    ...

    Don Deutsch, vice president of standards strategy at Oracle Corp., said the provision was a last-minute compromise designed to address the concerns of IBM and Microsoft. Deutsch added that he expects it to be approved.

    All the news reports I saw mentioned royalty-free. This is the first I've heard about an exception.

    • "But the group also included an exception provision that will make it possible for members to consider alternate licensing terms when it's deemed impossible to meet the royalty-free goal, he said." ...

      "Don Deutsch, vice president of standards strategy at Oracle Corp., said the provision was a last-minute compromise designed to address the concerns of IBM and Microsoft. Deutsch added that he expects it to be approved."

      All the news reports I saw mentioned royalty-free. This is the first I've heard abo

    • Re:What happened to royalty free? (Score:4, Informative)

      by russellini ( 674567 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @03:41AM (#5997096)
      It's not at all a last-minute compromise. The RAND exception has been a part of the PPWG policy since last February, at least. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-2002022 6/#sec-Exception.

      The current royalty-free policy is a shift from a previously announced August 2001) RAND policy. There were some (arguably) good reasons for a RAND policy; but the PPWG has decided that the only good reason for a RAND policy is if there is no way around the use of patented code.

      Hence the exception still exists as a useful remnant of what used to be the RAND rule. Weitzner stressed that it's tough to use because the PPWG doesnt want people to use it easily. And remember, Berners-Lee has to sign off on everything, and it would really take a lot for him to sign off on a RAND Recommendation.

      Also - a key part of the RAND exception is that the terms of the license (RAND or RF) must be clearly stated upfront. So they don't get submarined (a la Rambus - grrrr)

      • Well that was certainly helpful. I suppose I should have read it before-hand.

        Weitzner stressed that it's tough to use because the PPWG doesnt want people to use it easily. And remember, Berners-Lee has to sign off on everything, and it would really take a lot for him to sign off on a RAND Recommendation.

        I don't see where Berners-Lee has to sign off on anything. According to the latest draft [w3.org], it is up to the Patent Advisory Group (PAG) to reach a consensus on whether or not to use a non-RF patent. T

        • As Bob Wyman pointed out, I haven't looked at the new final draft in depth just yet. But my understanding of the W3C Recommendation Process (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/tr . html#RecsW3C)is that the Director is "responsible for assessing consensus" before a W3C Rec is issued (see http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/orga nization.html#def-Director). I interpret this to mean that no finished product goes out the W3C door without Tim B-L's explicit approval.

          I'm guessing that i
          • But my understanding of the W3C Recommendation Process (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/tr . html#RecsW3C)is that the Director is "responsible for assessing consensus"

            The term consensus is already clearly defined. There isn't much leeway in the assessment.

            But remember, the PAG is already stacked with people sympathetic to B-L's anti-patent beliefs

            I don't see it that way at all. My reading is that each new proposed standard has a different PAG. Except for the W3C counsel, everyone in

  • This was TIMELY...until April 30th. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This was TIMELY...until April 30th.

  • Still not GNU friendly... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    See section 5 item 3. It's still there, in plain view. See http://gnu.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html for why this is bad for ALL people.
    • To summarise:

      The proposed royalty free policy says that any royalty-free licence...

      may be limited to implementations of the Recommendation, and to what is required by the Recommendation;

      [W3C] [w3.org]

      The Free Software Foundation says that such a limit infringes a clause of the GPL:

      7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement... conditions are imposed on you... that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License

      • The GPL issue is essentially moot, because anyone who wanted to release their code GPL could just bundle the patented code into separate files, and release the whole product under a split license,
        i.e.: This program is released under GPL, except for the files "protocol-x.c" and "protocol-x.h" which are released under the W3C Royalty Free license.

        That would satisfy both licenses, and still fulfill the author's open source intentions.
        • ...bundle the patented code into separate files, and release the whole product under a split license...
          but that would not help users who can't compile the code themselves.

          If you can only distribute stuff to folk with compilers and the skill to use them, there is still a problem.

          • Well, not to sound overly retortive, but who really cares what the binary license is. A binary only user is restricted to using the product "as is," and can't, practically, modify it to do something else.

            With very few exceptions, you may distribute a binary to the same people to whom you may distribute your source. The binary would be under the same split license as the source, it just wouldn't practically mean anything, since a binary can't (practically) be modified.

            All of this is assuming we are spe

  • From reading the article it looks like the W3C proposal is about interoperability on the web. Does that mean that idiotic patents such as the one on e-commerce [youmaybenext.com] and streaming will be revoked? And while it may legally hold water, who was so on the take as to approve Amazon's One-Click patent? I suppose I should have placed a registered symbol or trademark symbol after that or something. Perhaps I should move now to get my patent on No-Click buying. By the way, you all owe me five dollars.

  • Can I? (Score:1)

    by nacs ( 658138 )
    I'd like to patent the 1-click XHTML 1.1 validator ... ideally when Bezos and the W3C aren't looking.
  • I wrote a paper about the W3C's PPWG and the extent to which we can consider their rulemaking process legitimate. I conclude that extended periods for public comment, invitation of outside experts Moglen and Perens, and extensive replies to public comments (from Daly and Weitzner) meets a high "democratic" standard. Berners-Lee's "benevolent dictatorship" is centrally important, as well.

    http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~russelal/papers/curre nt /alr-w3c-tprc.pdf
    • Andrew Russell's paper on the W3C PPWG seems to have been last revised on 18-Mar-2003, yet the most recent version of the W3C Patent Policy was released the next day, on 19-Mar-2003. The difference is significant since Russell's paper talks much about how the W3C had accepted a royalty-free policy, yet the policy that was released provides explicit exceptions that will allow encumbered royalty-based methods to be included in W3C recommendations in some circumstances. While Russell's paper is very interestin

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