[Patents] W3C considering "fair priced" web standards

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

In the following message, the web standardisation authority's director Tim
Berners-Lee is considering whether for certain less basic web standards
the requirement that the standard be freely implementable should be
waived.  It would thus become possible to have patented web standards that
can be implemented only under "RAND" terms, i.e. at a "fair price",
excluding free/opensource software.

From: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>
To: <w3c-ac-members@w3.org>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:23:59 -0400
Organization: W3C
Subject: W3C Web Services - what do you think?
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Dear Advisory Committee members,

As you are probably aware, there has been a strong call in the
community for W3C work on Web Services. Web Services may be defined
as remote operations protocols appropriate for use on a intra-enterprise
or inter-enterprise commercial environment.

This led to the W3C Web Services workshop[1] at which possible
architectures and priorities were discussed. The workshop finished
with a strong call to go ahead, and the suggestion that those who had
the effort to draft proposals for the activity should do so. Two fully
fledged proposals ([2] and [3]) have in fact been drawn up by various
Members, and we expect to form between them the basis for the Activity
Proposal.

One technical difference between the two proposals is the role of the
Resource Description Framework (RDF). One proposal mandates the use of
RDF for "any semantically significant information", while the other
proposal leaves the relationship with the work conducted by the
Semantic Web activity blurry.

Another noticeable difference between the proposals is in the area of
intellectual property.

We and the W3C Team have assumed that Web Services technologies, such
as a description language, would be considered common infrastructure
and a basis for much exciting future work.  We therefore believe that
the draft Patent Policy [4], which holds that "it is especially
important that the Recommendations covering lower-layer infrastructure
be implementable on an RF basis", is applicable.  In this belief we
are encouraged by certain members such as Canon, HP and Oracle. On the
other hand, the other proposal drawn up by other members involves the
possibilities of royalties being payable on RAND terms for Web
Services technology.

As this seems on the surface to represent perhaps a misunderstanding
or a schism in the policies of different companies, the W3C staff
would like to call for a period of email discussion on the AC forum[5]
rather than simply sending out an Activity Proposal under Royalty Free
terms for review by the Advisory Committee.

Don Deutsch from Oracle independently sent an email[6] to the AC forum
opening up a debate on IPR mode the Web services. By showing you those
two draft charters, We would like both to open up the debate on
technical issues and to present to you concrete examples of
differences of ideas about IPR mode among W3C Members.

We would like to limit this discussion to two weeks (until 3
October 2001) because we would like to go forward with a formal
Activity Proposal as soon as possible. Should this time frame proves
insufficient to reach some consensus about which way to go, this
discussion period could be extended, although this would be at the
cost of delaying the start of this new Activity.

Advisory Committee representatives are encouraged to discuss technical
issues and intellectual property issues in two different threads.

We are looking forward to writing an Activity Proposal which will be
in accord with the desires of the Membership and will be beneficial to
the Web community at large.

- -- Tim Berners-Lee, Director
    Hugo Haas, Web Services lead
    W3C


   1. http://www.w3.org/2001/01/WSWS
   2. http://www.w3.org/2001/09/wscp/canon.html
   3. http://www.w3.org/2001/09/wscp/iimvw.html
   4. http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-policy/
   5. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-forum/
   6. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-forum/2001JulSep/0055.html

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