atNewYork.com: The Royalty-Frees Have It at W3C

“After months of rancorous debate and wrangling over sticking
points, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Thursday revised its
patent policy, which lets W3C recommendations to be issued
royalty-free.

“Published in the form of the ‘Last Call Working Draft,’ the
latest iteration means those who participate in the creation of a
W3C recommendation must agree to license patents that block
interoperability without charging other users, so as not to stifle
standards development, according to the W3C.

“The secondary goal of this play is to ask that W3C Members and
others come forth when they are aware of patents that may be
essential to the implementation of W3C Recommendations. To be
clear: the policy does not dictate that group members must open up
one’s entire patent portfolio. Rather, it concerns those patents
that are essential to use a standard that one participates in
developing at W3C…”

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