Weitzner.

W3C, P3P working group. w3c mbr company got a very broad patent early this year. If taken seriously, could have ramifications for w3c standard, put out open call on the web to identify prior art.

A.   Broader question: how ought a standards body on the web to deal with patents?

1. temporal - speed of net developments
2. style of research and creation of prior art different. Code, not journal articles
3. organizations and individuals we hope can participate. Not just a small group of organizations who can sit around the table exchanging patent licenses.
   Bradner: the last distinguishes this dicussion from traditional arena.
   Mozilla, wang patent, public call for prior art.
   Reagle: how do you trademark/protect the property of a community?
   Thau: software is special because it requires little capital, other than the cost of licensing patents. So patent becomes the functional barrier to entry.
   Boyle: model from other areas of controversy. Fight over expansion of copyright duration, extent, contraction of fair use.

Strategies for X

(what is X? - to constrain the application of patent law, particularly in the area of standards. clarify, narrow the scope, critique maximalist agenda)

1. Get different portions of the government fighting with each other. clash the bureaucratic agendas.
2. Getting credible capitalists to stand up and say this was a problem, bad for American commerce.
   mindshare: business, government, NGOs.
3. Broaden the base, - why people should care. Illustrate social impact.
4. litigation strategy. prior art, utility, patent abuse and the effects of lock-in (Kodak).
5. reform legislation.
   reducing monopoly length
   lawsuit out there currently arguing for longer time...
   educate congress
6. public statement. forum for consenss
7. Better meme. "Hands off the Net." Patent monopoly is a restriction on competition
   Patents a grant of power to Congress, not a requirement. Utilitarian and temporal requirements.
   Rhetoric. The public domain. Analogies to the environmental movement. Externalities, ecology (unexpected reciprocal connections)
   unless you factor in the downsides to each property right, you will over-propertize
   need to gather the horror stories, factoids.
8. congress shld allocate extra money for a prior art database within the PTO.
   How can we leverage Harvard?
   bumper sticker.

Practice.

1. Prior art pool to enable patent challengers.
   mailing list or database, archive drafts
   needs an administrator with a light, but not absent touch; data model
2. change entrepreneur / VC mindset
3. positive stories
4. fix the one-way ratchet of int'l harmonization / convene international discussion

It's not the IBMs and HPs who are pushing for the extensions.
These are the same things that were discussed 10 years ago with regard to software patents.

What's different? the web is built on open standards.
(problem of transactions costs when these technologies are used/meant to be used by huge number of people