The W3C has issued a Last Call Working Draft of the W3C Patent Policy Framework, and is seeking public comment.

This document has previously been an internal document, but the current release is intended for discussion:

"This proposal has been under development since October 1999 and has received informal comments from members of the W3C Advisory Committee and W3C Advisory Board. Though this Framework is not a technical specification (rather it proposed changes to the W3C Process Document and Member Agreement) we believe Consortium policy regarding the interaction of patent rights and Web standards is of significant importance to the community-at-large, so we are seeking public comment. This Last Call period will be the only opportunity for public comment. The Patent Policy Working Group will compile a list of all substantive issues raised during this review and provide a response to each. We ask that those who provide feedback make an effort to include specific suggestions on changes to the policy that would address concerns raised."

Patent and other intellectual property concerns are a frequent topic of discussion on the xml-dev mailing list, and some previous brushes with patents (notably on P3P, XForms, and XPointer) have raised community concerns about the terms on which these specifications can be used.

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