| New patent threat for W3C specifications
Co-editor
of the W3C XForms Working Draft Micah Dubinko has reported
to W3C mailing lists the existence of US patent 6,028,938 entitled "Secure
electronic forms permitting layout revision" that may overlap fields covered
by the XML Signature and XForms specifications.
The press release by patent
owner Shana Corporation allows a wide range of interpretations:
The Worldwide Web
Consortium's XForms Working Group - with the mandate to "build a better
web form" - has developed the XForms Data Model, which deliberately
separates the purpose of a form from its presentation. Having recommended
separating the data, the presentation and the rules contained in an electronic
form, the Working Group is now faced with the issue of how to manage e-forms
transactions securely. It is anticipated that the technology covered by this
patent will be of real interest to the Working Group.
And, says Micah
Dubinko:
This, to me, muddies the
waters significantly, as it calls into question whether the XForms Working
Group is free to proceed with our plan to create "the next generation of
Web forms". For instance, will interactions between XForms and XML
Signatures be impacted by Shana IPR claims?
After the
claim by British Telecom to hold a patent on hyperlinks and the XPointer
related patent held by Sun, this is the third recent case showing that
developers following a W3C specification might not be free of patent claims--a
situation WAP developers have already tasted.
Other
stories:
Re: New patent threat for W3C specifications (Brent Michalski - 14:22, 30 Jan 2001) Will it ever end?!
These patents are such crap, the patent office needs to re-think how they do business.
Next, someone will patent soft, fiberous sheets on a cylindrical roller. Then we'd be unable to use toilet paper without paying patent fees.
Just because something hasn't been patented yet, doesn't mean that obvious evolution of existing technologies should be allowed to be patented.
Grrrrrrr. </rant>
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