W3C considers royalty based standards

The World Wide Web Consortium, more commonly known as W3C, is currently considering a proposal that would allow companies to have their patented web technologies considered for W3C standards.

The proposal revolves around a new licensing

The World Wide Web Consortium, more commonly known as W3C, is currently considering a proposal that would allow companies to have their patented web technologies considered for W3C standards.

The proposal revolves around a new licensing model, called RAND (Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory). RAND would permit patented standards to become officially recognised by the W3C. Furthermore, RAND permits companies to charge royalties on the use of these standards.

RAND requires that any company imposing licensing restrictions (such as the payment of royalties) must impose these restrictions uniformly among all users. Thus, if a company charges user Y, X amount of dollars each time Y uses the standard, all other users must be charged the same amount, with no consideration based on entity status (such as non-profit organisations' or free software developers).

To help enforce RAND compliancy, the proposal also advocates the use of license audits.

The normal process for W3C approval is for a company or individual to submit their intellectual property on a royalty-free basis in order to gain W3C support. In turn, this support will help the standard become widely implemented. However, RAND will allow companies to have their cake and eat it too. RAND will provide W3C support, but will also enable companies to charge royalties on the usage of their technologies after they gain widespread usage. Thus, companies can release a technology to the W3C for approval, and can wait until it is in widespread use before they begin to charge fees. If you can't yet see the implications, consider what would happen if HTML suddenly became pay-per-use.

It gets worse. If an Advisory Committee Representative from a company refuses to answer questions about potential patents held on standards submitted for approval, RAND becomes the default license used with the standard. This means that companies will be able to withhold details of patents that, if disclosed during the review process, would allow attempts at circumvention - and still obtain RAND licensing.

Thankfully, all is not lost. The W3C has extended the public and member comment period from the original cut-off of September 30, to October the 11th. Get in there and make your opinions known but please, refrain from 'this is bad!' comments. We need logical discussion on the drawbacks of this proposal, otherwise all your efforts will be wasted.

For more information, see W3C
And, for an insightful commentary into the whole sordid affair, try Linux Today