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W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy

Posted by timothy on 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."

4 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Rationale for new patent policy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  2. comment period by Alien54 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  3. Re:Not what we need. by insanecarbonbasedlif · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

    --
    Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
  4. What happened to royalty free? by smiff · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Apparently, there's a loophole in the royalty-free standard. Can someone tell me when this happened? From the Computer World article:

    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.