W3C Chastises Apple On HTML5 Patenting 126
angry tapir writes "The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is seeking to invalidate a pair of Apple patents so the underlying technologies can be used as part of a royalty-free HTML5 stack. The patented technologies are core components to the W3C's Widget Access Request Policy, which specifies how mobile applications can request sensitive material. It is one of a number of specifications that are closely tied to the W3C's next generation standard for Web pages and applications, HTML5."
Gobshyte much? (Score:4, Informative)
We will see how nice Apple plays now.
This is a quote from Steve Jobs justifying their war on Flash.
"Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."
Source: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ [apple.com]
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
That was actually the case with JEDEC. Part of their contract for membership was that members would file no patents (submarine or otherwise) on the memory specifications being discussed, and any patents already in process would be disclosed to the other members. The Courts actually found RAMBUS in violation of this part of the contract. However, since RAMBUS' violation was of a private contract between private party, and not a violation of U.S. law, any punishment had to originate in the contract. And the membership contract didn't specify any penalties for a member filing a submarine patent. Basically even though RAMBUS violated the intent and spirit of membership to screw over the other members, the only recourse available to JEDEC was to kick RAMBUS out of JEDEC.
So it's not enough merely to have these clauses. You must also list specific and brutal punishments for anyone violating them.