Microsoft tackles W3C on a Royalty Free-only patents policy

By Alun Williams

Posted on 21 Jan 2003 at 17:00

Microsoft has clashed with the Internet standards body W3C over the acceptance of a royalty-free policy on the development of patents.

The W3C Patent Policy working group (PPWG) is proposing the adoption of a Royalty Free (RF)-only policy, for the work in generating future Internet standards. The W3C, of course, oversees the development of such Internet standards and specifications as HTML, MathML and SVG.

David Turner, Microsoft's representative to the W3C Advisory Committee, argues the case for a more corporate-friendly approach that could mean enforcing royalties. This is reported by the Internet Patent News Service (a newsletter sent out from bustpatents.com), which has received a copy of the email between Microsoft and the W3C.

Turner is quoted as saying that many of Microsoft's customers from outside of the IT sector - such as consumer electronics and telecom companies - expect their patent portfolio departments to generate revenue commensurate with their other major business units. 'We have heard from many of these customers who are also W3C members that they will not participate in standards development activities if it means that they will have to agree to license their patents on a RF-only basis.'

Having commended the W3C for its work in defining a patent policy to cover the development and licensing of Web-based standards, Turner restates Microsoft's opposition to a royalty-free stance. While acknowledging the role of W3C-approved XML and WSDL in Microsoft's latest generation of technology, he sees future developments threatened by a lack of corporate co-operation.

Turner emphasises that Microsoft's own ability to charge royalties for implementations of key W3C standards is not - and has not been - a consideration in the debate over whether W3C should have a RF-only policy. 'We are concerned,' he states 'that that adoption of the current RF-only policy will severely limit the effectiveness of the W3C in continuing to be a good forum to develop web-based standards that will achieve widespread adoption in terms of cost and time.'

The RF option would apply, for example, to official W3C Recommendations.