IP: more on -- RAND and W3C (for IP if you like)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Daniel J. Weitzner" <djweitzner () w3 org>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: Re: RAND and W3C (for IP if you like)
> Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 09:12:37 -0400
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2479.0006
>
> Dave,
>
> W3C is in the midst of a very serious debate about the role of patents with
> respect to Web standards. This article, however, doesn't really hit the
> heart of the matter. The draft policy we've proposed replaces the current
> confusion over patents with two options for new standards: either
> Royalty-Free (with real teeth as opposed to today's hope that no one will
> sue) or RAND (reasonable, non-discriminatory terms). The proposal that some
> W3C standards might be RAND as opposed to Royalty-Free has, as the article
> below notes, produced huge outcry from the Open Source community. In the
> heat of the debate, I believe that many royalty-free proponents have lost
> sight of the fact that the proposed policy creates much more legal certainty
> around RF, but that's for readers to judge. As you know, RAND is quite
> common in technical standards bodies (ISO, ANSI, even IETF) but raises big
> questions in the Web context due to the Web's strong roots in the open
> source environment.
>
> I invite IPers to read the statement we've put out.
>
>     http://www.w3.org/2001/10/patent-response (links to the draft policy
> itself are in this document)
>
> and consider commenting on the policy we're proposing. There's also a lively
> discussion going on at Slashdot:
>
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/08/1459240&mode=thread
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/30/1454216&mode=nested
>
> At the request of a number of commenters from the Open Source community,
> we've extended the comment deadline to 11 October 2001 and will circulate
> another draft of our policy for comment before it is finalized.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Danny Weitzner
> Chair, W3C Patent Policy Working Group


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