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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JUNE 02, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 22
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Breaking News - General:
W3C Notes Web Patents Policy
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has noted its formal policy for ensuring
that key Web technologies, even if patented, are made available on a royalty-
free basis.
In a formal statement, the consortium asserted that the W3C Patent Policy is
designed to reduce the threat that key components of Web infrastructure may be
covered by patents which block further development.
The policy states that:
- participants in the development of a W3C Recommendation must agree to
license essential claims, such as those that block interoperability, on a
royalty-free basis;
- under certain circumstances, Working Group participants may exclude
specifically identified patent claims from the royalty-free commitment, but
these exclusions must be made known shortly after publication of the first
public Working Draft to avoid later problems with surprise patents;
- W3C members who have seen a technical draft of a standard must disclose their
knowledge of any patents likely to be essential to the standard; an exception-
handling process will deal with any patent claims not available with terms
consistent with the W3C Patent Policy.
This policy serves to formalize a commitment to a royalty-free process which
has driven the development of the Web since its beginning, according to W3C.
The process has seen input from companies, researchers, and independent
developers which have created technical interoperability standards upon which
a worldwide information infrastructure has been built, W3C said in the
statement.
"W3C members who joined in building the Web in its first decade made the
business decision that they, and the entire world, would benefit most by
contributing to standards that could be implemented ubiquitously, without
royalty payments," Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, said in the statement.
Some concern has been raised that companies seeking royalty payments for their
patented work--particularly in the area of Web services--may choose to bypass
the W3C approval process and use another standards body such as the
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards.
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