Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard
from the getting-to-be-a-habit dept
Apple has been garnering quite a reputation for itself as a patent bully, for example using patents around the world in an attempt to stop Samsung competing in the tablet market, and bolstering patent trolls. But that's not enough for the company, it seems: now it wants to use patents to block open standards.As befits an organization that seeks to promote the Web, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a clear policy on the use of patents in its standards:
In order to promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis. Subject to the conditions of this policy, W3C will not approve a Recommendation if it is aware that Essential Claims exist which are not available on Royalty-Free terms.That's to ensure that no company has a stranglehold over a W3C standard that it can use to extract a monopoly rent from the implementations, and to create a level playing field so that all companies can compete fairly.
< ...>
As a condition of participating in a Working Group, each participant (W3C Members, W3C Team members, invited experts, and members of the public) shall agree to make available under W3C RF licensing requirements any Essential Claims related to the work of that particular Working Group.
Clearly, Apple's not happy with that approach, since it has just disclosed some patents that may be relevant to a new open standard the W3C is working on. Opera Software's Haavard Moen explains the significance of the move:
This time they have four claims - three patents and one patent application - that threaten to block the W3C Touch Events Specification. They filed their patent claims a little over a month before the time limit expired (the claim was filed on November 11, and the time limit is December 26, 2011).As Moen points out, this is not the first time Apple has pulled this trick of disclosing patents at the last moment, and throwing a spanner in the W3C's machinery. This suggests that it doesn't have a problem with the specific W3C open standard, but with open standards in general.
The odd thing is that Apple chose not to join the working group that handles touch events. If they had joined, they would have been forced to file the patent claims far sooner. So now we know why they didn't join. What we don't know is why Apple insists on waiting almost until the last minute before filing its patent claims.
Moreover, there are serious knock-on effects for the whole of W3C:
What makes this matter even worse is that this doesn't just affect these specific standards. The Patent Advisory Groups could in fact slow down the development of other standards by pulling people from other projects in order to investigate these claims. The investigation can take several months, and will take time, resources and money to complete.You would have thought that a company as successful and generally admired as Apple would go out of its way to be helpful to these industry efforts to bring open standards to the Web for the benefit of users. Sadly, it seems to take the view that the only thing that matters is preserving its own power and profit, and that one way to do that is to stop the spread of open standards that give everyone an equal chance in emerging markets. The only consolation is that Apple's latest move adds to the evidence that patents today are more about stifling the competition than promoting innovation.
That's time, resources and money that could have been spent on improving various other work-in-progress standards.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: open standards, patents, w3c
Companies: apple
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Quoted from Unknown
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Quoted from Unknown
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Quoted from Unknown
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Open
Pick one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Good for Apple.
Apple is simply striving to realize their own rational self interest. If *more* companies did stuff like this, we'd have a much better internet than the statist-riddled government developed peice of junk that we have now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good for Apple.
If you would care to explain in careful detail what you mean by a "much better internet" when this one seems to work beautifully.
And if you mention copyright, piracy and all that silliness Ayn Rand will likely puke her guts up in her grave.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Good for Apple.
or Apple's walled garden......
Or comcast's walled garden.....
Or AT&T's walled....oh you get the picture.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Good for Apple.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good for Apple.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good for Apple.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good for Apple.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patents are nothing less than state-granted monopolies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
Please tell me what planet you're from.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
Apple is the one making the standard unenforceable, not the W3C.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
i.e. if we can't think of a way to profit from this, then screw everyone...........
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Since when is playing by the rules obstruction?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
Apple fanbois, whatever else their failings are generally post in mutisyllabic words with decent grammar.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
"mutisyllabic" Learn some English and how to spell, you dim wit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "Apple Abuses Patent System Again To Obstruct W3C Open Standard"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is commercial and legal, and a normal part of a technology company and their modus operandi. Some will choose to ignore patents, taking a commercial judgement that it will cost more to police than they may get as a return.
Just because W3C is open source it doesn't compel Apple to volunteer it's technology to it at all, particularly if it has already withdrawn from that particular group. W3C is working group to promote web standards, this means they don't get to promote Apples technology or include it in those standards...
I might add, anyone can get a patent for novel work but it is always the policing of the patent that makes it effective.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When you turn it into a weapon, you're subverting the whole game and nobody (not even you, really) benefits. If you're going to play that way, you should just keep it a trade secret and leave the rest of us to do our thing without you.
Also, the W3C isn't about open source. It's about synchronizing the parts of the game so everybody can play by the same rules, like having html tags start with < and end with > so all browsers can interpret them properly and I don't have to write the same webpage source differently for each browser.
Again, by cooperating in good faith, everybody benefits, from the companies that make browsers to the people who write websites to the people who read and post comments to websites (just to stick with the same set of W3C standards). When someone like Apple or Microsoft takes their ball and stalks home in a snit, the rest of us have to come up with another ball in order to continue playing.
p.s. If you can read techdirt on IE or Safari, you should be thinking about societal leaches when you read that MS or Apple are threatening the W3C with patents.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: sorry, but the whole point of a patent is to get you to play the same game with the rest of us...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It doesn't matter what one company suffers what it matters is what the environment they are in suffers, not one company, not two and certainly no small group, creation of wealth depends on production, production only happens if there is work done, limiting the field to only a few big players that have the power to stop everyone else shrinks the market instead of growing it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Apple patents
Knowledge is power.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Apple patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Apple patents
Patent 7,812,828 issued 10/12/2010 (Filing date: 2/22/2007)
Patent 13/163,624 issued on 10/13/2011 (Filing date: 6/17/2011)
Patent 13/163,626 issued on 10/13/2011 (Filing date: 6/17/2011)
The fourth patent has not yet been issued.
So at least one they had for over a year. And why did two only take 4 months to issue? Why did one take 30 months to issue?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Apple patents
I do not know if this is the case here, but whenenver a later filed application is closely related to a prior filed application, the majority of the relevant prior art has already been identified, so the process of identifying additional art related to the new application is significantly accelerated. This is in part one of the reasons why the time between filing and issuance of a later filed application can be shorter.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Apple patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Apple patents
That is why patents are bad they start to affect negatively the bigger market making it impossible for smaller players to get into the game legally. Of course there is a breaking point where people will start doing it illegally, then it is game over.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ayn Rand once said "Check Your Premises"
In the same sense, all the Limbaugh-Beck drone units are now telling us that the bank bailouts were not capitalism. So in effect, according to Rand, who died for our capitalist sins, we are absolved from the sin of TARP, which was caused by a sodomite Senator anyway. I mean nobody is perfect right?
So long and thanks for the worthless apology...without any punishment to deter them, the doctrine of Industry Self Regulation will mean many more TARPs and too-big-to-fails to come.
(*Greenspan was at one point an Ayn Rand disciple...for all you home skoolers out there)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ayn Rand once said "Check Your Premises"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Well
I did, and I went with Android :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
except
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Steve Jobs inverse of dutch boy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No, you would have thought
What you would think is that people would notice this at some point and stop thinking of Apple as a shining, benevolent wizard.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rotten Apple
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Rotten Apple
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Profit Protection Yes - Poison The Web, No!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Everyone is forgetting history
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Business protection
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Say WHAT????
In what world do you live in? Apple is only "well regarded" by SHEEP who don't know any better! In REALITY, Apple has ALWAYS been anti-consumer, anti-open source, anti-standards (unless they OWN the standard! Look at Flash, WebM and DLNA among others), and will do and say ANYTHING to put more money in the company coffers!
Now that "His Holyness" (Jobs) is dead and buried, the shine is coming off Apple in a hurry, and the mass market is FINALLY waking up to the fact that Apple does NOT have their best interests in mind when crafting company and legal policy!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In the end this can really only end in isolation. So why do it? Is absolute control and power really worth that gamble?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]