What if Tim Berners-Lee Had patented HTML?

jeffburdges — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:58:44 -0800

Francis Gurry, the Director of the UN's WIPO, claims the web would have been better if Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTML and licensed it. He does so on camera and in front of shocked members of the Internet Society and CERN. Ironically, exactly this thought experiment came up for the web's 20th birthday on this August 6th.

For a more rigorous perspective, three Boston University School of Law faculty have shown that lawsuits by non-practicing entities, aka patent trolls, have cost technology companies half a trillion dollars of lost wealth over the past two decades, with little benefit to small inventors, instead reducing the incentive to innovate. There is also concern that patent trolls will broaden their scope to biotechnology and medical advancements following a recent federal appeals court ruling in favor of Classen Immunotherapies exceedingly broad patent on "linking infant vaccination with later immune disorders", as well as Myriad Genetics recent appellate court victory on a patent covering critical patent on a "breast cancer risk gene". Meanwhile, the patent war continues apace, now growing personal, and a patent troll named Innovatio’s has started going after wifi users. But hey, the tax lawyers are fine since the America Invents Act has made tax loopholes non-patentable. At least, Australia has found some arguments to reject software patents.

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