The World Wide Web consortium (W3C) is developing a proposal for a “Patent Policy Framework.” This means that the W3C could endorse web standards that employ patented technology and, moreover, that the patent holder of such technology could issue RAND licences to cover the use of the technology and to recover royalty payments in respect of it.
An Apple spokesman outlined the company’s position:
“the ready availability of a RAND option presents too easy an alternative for owners of intellectual property who may seek to use the standardisation process to control access to fundamental web standards. A mandatory royalty-free requirement for all adopted standards will avoid this result.”
Hewlett-Packard voiced it’s opinion more strongly:
“[the] company opposes the adoption of the proposed W3C Patent Policy Framework in it’s current form and recommends that it be replaced by a policy with the goal of producing W3C standards that are all royalty free.”
The W3C is still accepting public comment on the Policy and is expected to reach a final decision in February 2002.
Raising concerns that echo the patenting of established web standards, the US Patent Office has granted IBM a patent for a web page template tool.
The patent relates to “the system and method for building a web site using specific interface.” This is explained as the process when:
“a software tool is provided for use with a computer system for simplifying the creation of web sites... to create a web site, a web site creator (the person using the tool to create a web site) is prompted by the tool through a series of views stored in the tool to select the features and options desired for the web site.”
As pointed out in news site The Register.co.uk, this patent description is so wide that it could conceivably relate to the wizards used in HTML editors. In other words, IBM could be seen to have obtained a patent over a technology that is neither innovative or even a recent development in web site creation.