[Patents] W3C Patent Policy Comments That Failed to Get Posted

Wed Jan 1 11:21:59 UTC 2003

On Wed, Jan 01, 2003 at 12:33:07AM -0500, Seth Johnson wrote:
> 
> To the W3C Patent Policy Working Group:
> 
> I have received the following comments from various other
> online sources, all indicating that they have been sent to
> the www-patentpolicy-comment at w3.org list.

For the record, I also sent a comment which was bounced. I received
the following error message. However, visiting the provided URL gives
me an error.

    id not found

    Error: There is no message with id:
    9b1467c302ebfd641803eedbb11c51c58c7d0db0. Please make sure you have
    cut and pasted the URI correctly.

I am not asking for user support. But you activist types may find this
information useful to try extend the comment submission period. If a
technical failure occured at the end of the comment submission period,
it is reasonable to ask for an extension.

----- Forwarded message from W3C List Manager <aa-sender at w3.org> -----

Subject: IMPORTANT: your message to www-patentpolicy-comment
To: david at allouche.net
From: W3C List Manager <aa-sender at w3.org>

This is a response to a message apparently sent from your address to
www-patentpolicy-comment at w3.org:

    Subject: Do not accept "field of use" restriction
    From:    David Allouche <david at allouche.net>
    Date:    Tue, 31 Dec 2002 18:54:27 +0100

Your message has NOT been distributed to the list; before we distribute it,
we need your permission to include your message in our Web archive of all
messages distributed to this list.

Please visit:

    http://www.w3.org/Mail/review?id=9b1467c302ebfd641803eedbb11c51c58c7d0db0

and follow the simple procedure listed to give us permission to include
your message in our Web archives. It should take less than one minute
of your time, and only needs to be done once.

If you do not give us this permission by Tue Jan  7 17:54:28 UTC 2003,
your message will be deleted from our systems without being distributed
to the list.

Please do not reply to this message; for more information on this system,
including information on how to provide feedback, please see:

    http://www.w3.org/2002/09/aa/

Note: W3C's mailing lists may not be used for unsolicited bulk email
of any kind!

----- End forwarded message -----

----- Forwarded message from David Allouche <david at allouche.net> -----

To: www-patentpolicy-comment at w3.org
Subject: Do not accept "field of use" restriction
From: David Allouche <david at allouche.net>

Since its beginnings, the W3C has accomplished the respectable mission
of making the internet a place of freedom and equality were all
contributors, be they individuals, small or big businesses or
governements had similar abilities to publish and access information
and develop new tools leveraging the common infrastructure.

This longstanding policy has been one of the key factors in the
wonderful success of the Web as a media for speech and business.
Today, W3C has become for many technical and management people a seal
of quality ensuring interoperability and freedom. That is what makes
the W3C a successful organization. You know that when one bases its
projects on W3C recommandation, one produces useful tools which can be
used in all reasonable ways without fear of litigation.

The so called "field of use restriction" that the W3C plan to accept
for technologies used in its official recommandation will considerably
change the game. The problem is that the Web is not a closed system.
It is more and more interleaved with all fields of endeavour where
computing is involved. One of latest buzz-words in the telecom field
is "digital convergence". This convergence applies very much to Web
technologies too.

That means that any "field of use restriction" applicable to a W3C
recommandation makes its use a legal mine-field. As the limit between
computing and appliance, communication and networking, Web and
publishing blurs, the interpretation of the "field of use" will be
more and more arbitrary, making it a dreaded weapons for patent
holders.

The current trend in patenting in the software and business methods
field is appearing more and more as a way for businesses to prevent
smaller businesses from entering their market. Whether that is a
acceptable retribution for research and wether that stifles or promote
innovation is a debate I wish not to discuss.

However I do not believe that it is compatible with the W3C mission to
taint its recommandations by making them potentially harmful to small
businesses and individuals. The high respect you have earned in the
computing field, you may lose it when a few patent holders have used
the "field of use restriction" against competitors. The W3C is about
interoperability and legal safety for users of its recommandations. I
hope that you will be attentive to the lower traffic produced by this
new proposal compared to the "RAND" proposal last year.

Not every business or developer is aware of the problems involved in
"field of use restriction", but when they realize it the impact to the
W3C will be similar. People and organization will lose trust in your
recommandations. Then either web technologies will diverge, which will
be a disaster, or another organization will take the place you will
have leaved and will earn the trust you will have losed. Either way
that will be a failure for the W3C. Please do not do that.

Best wish and deeps regards.

-- 
David Allouche         | GNU TeXmacs -- Writing is a pleasure
Free software engineer |    http://www.texmacs.org
   http://ddaa.net     |    http://alqua.com/tmresources
   david at allouche.net  |    allouche at texmacs.org
TeXmacs is NOT a LaTeX front-end and is unrelated to emacs.

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
David Allouche         | GNU TeXmacs -- Writing is a pleasure
Free software engineer |    http://www.texmacs.org
   http://ddaa.net     |    http://alqua.com/tmresources
   david at allouche.net  |    allouche at texmacs.org
TeXmacs is NOT a LaTeX front-end and is unrelated to emacs.