The W3C's RAND Patent Policy commenting deadline has been extended. At first glance, the new policies seem to encourage software patents, but after reading the whole thing and the W3C's response to current comments, it looks, to my admittedly naive eyes, as though the W3C is trying to make it so that companies using proprietary software are going to
have to make it available to other people for licensing. Why is this new structure potentially a bad thing?
posted by cCranium
on Oct 2, 2001 -
8 comments
FLASH! Sanity breaks out in Congress! Doesn't sound like grandstanding to me; sounds like these guys have a clue on software and business method patents. "Healthy skepticism" sound like real friendly words to me.
posted by baylink
on Oct 4, 2000 -
0 comments
Amazon is approved for a patent on the technology behind their affiliate program. Wow, this really has the potential to shake things up a bit. Will software
patents like this destroy internet commerce?
posted by webshaping
on Feb 27, 2000 -
3 comments
Web-related software patents are starting to look like the new cyber-squatting equivalent. People are patenting all sorts of mundane things like "electronic shopping carts" and "making secure purchases via the internet." My guess is in 3 or 4 years, after many of these silly patents have been awarded, we'll see a restructuring of the US patent system.
posted by mathowie
on Feb 22, 2000 -
2 comments
