A new and controversial proposal under consideration by the World Wide Web Consortium could open the way for companies to claim patent rights--and demand royalties--on standards authorized by that body. The W3C works with developers, software makers and others to come . . .
A new and controversial proposal under consideration by the World Wide Web Consortium could open the way for companies to claim patent rights--and demand royalties--on standards authorized by that body. The W3C works with developers, software makers and others to come up with standards for the Web, which can then be used by just about anyone to build Web software, free of charge. To date, those standards have either not been based on patented technology, or the holders of patents have chosen to not enforce patents in order that the standards be widely adopted.

But a new proposal may now open a few cracks in that wall, allowing companies to enforce patents based around those technologies and to potentially charge a royalty fee to developers who use them.

The W3C's Patent Policy Framework, more commonly referred to as the "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing proposal, acknowledges a central conflict to the standardization process: Companies that spend serious time and effort coming up with the technology behind the standards may be reluctant to simply give away the rights to what they consider their intellectual property.

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