#title: Patent on searchword-based hyperlinking encumbers W3C XPointer standard #descr: In Jan 2001 people at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) found that their new generation of hypertext markup language was infringing on a patent from Sun Microsystems. By a decree of the US patent office, Sun has become the owner of the idea of adding a search word to a link in such a way that the browser will scroll to that word. The developpement of the XPointer concept of the XML standard seemed in jeopardy. Sun's license terms are quite generous: they require than any competitor using this concept obliges himself in return to publish the concepts that he builds on it. Thus Sun supplies the W3C a weapon against %(q:embrace and extend) tactics. But even if based on good intentions, this requirement may restrict the development of the new standard, and people at the W3C experts question whether a trivial software patent really gives Sun the right to impose such restrictions. #Alb: detailed analysis of the case #Apc: claims #Bie: Already in 1999, the W3C was plunged into a crisis, because %{LST} patented some of the principles involved in the hypertext principles which they were just formulating into a new standard. The W3C now has to devote a large part of its limited ressources to fight patents. #Tya: The CEO of a company that plunged the WWW Consortium (W3C) into a patent crisis and later, under political pressure, granted everybody a free license to his patents, interprets this process as a great success of the patent system and of the %(q:Free Market). #Age: At %(ip:another occasion), Reed predicted that even Free Software authors will eventually benefit from the patent system. # Local Variables: ; # coding: utf-8 ; # srcfile: /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/phm/sys/mlht.el ; # mailto: mlhtimport@ffii.org ; # login: phm ; # passwd: YYYYY ; # feature: swpatdir ; # dok: swxai-xpointer ; # txtlang: en ; # multlin: t ; # End: ;