Margaret Kane and Mike Ricciuti, writing at CNET News.com, report that a new and controversial proposal under consideration by the World Wide Web Consortium could open the way for companies to claim patent rights — and demand royalties — on standards authorized by that body. Kane and Ricciuti write . . .

“The W3C works with developers, software makers and others to come up with standards for the Web, which can then be used by just about anyone to build Web software, free of charge. To date, either those standards have not been based on patented technology, or the holders of patents have chosen to not enforce patents in order that the standards be widely adopted.

But a new proposal may open a few cracks in that wall, allowing companies to enforce patents based on those technologies and to potentially charge a royalty fee to developers who use them . . .

'This proposal would effectively ban open-source interpretations of these standards,' said Bruce Perens, who helped write the Open Source Definition in 1998. 'We don't have royalties in open-source software. The W3C can potentially marginalize itself with the RAND proposal.' . . .”

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