Tim Berners-Lee—W3C formally adopted royalty-free patent policy for web standards
In May 2003, W3C adopted a formal Patent Policy ensuring that web standards could be implemented on a royalty-free basis. Berners-Lee stated: 'W3C Members who joined in building the Web in its first decade made the business decision that they, and the entire world, would benefit most by contributing to standards that could be implemented ubiquitously, without royalty payments.'
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intellectual Property Ethics | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Open Source | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Confirms Policy Change May 1, 2003 verified
W3C adopted formal Patent Policy for royalty-free web standards
In May 2003, W3C adopted a formal Patent Policy ensuring web standards could be implemented royalty-free. This formalized the commitment that began with CERN's 1993 decision to make the Web public domain.