A new document approved by the W3C Advisory Board describes current W3C patent practice as established in a 22-January-2002 meeting. At present W3C only has a process for Royalty-Free (RF) Working Groups; the Patent Policy Working Group has been asked to look into creating a process for RAND working groups. W3C current practice "has evolved in order to satisfy the goal held by a number of W3C Members and significant parts of the larger Web community: that W3C Recommendations should be, as far as possible, implementable on a Royalty-Free basis. The current practice described here seeks to (1) establish Royalty-Free implementation as a goal for Recommendations produced by new and re-chartered Working Groups; (2) encourage maximum disclosure of patents that might prevent a W3C Recommendation from being implemented on a Royalty-Free basis; (3) provide a process for addressing situations in which the goal of Royalty-Free implementation may not be attainable. Each new or re-chartered Working Group will be chartered with a patent licensing requirement. At present, only Royalty-Free (RF) Working Groups will be created. This requirement describes the licensing terms according to which the final Recommendation ought to be able to be implemented. It does not impose any licensing requirements on either Working Group participants or W3C Members as a whole."

Bibliographic information: "Current Patent Practice.". W3C Note 24-January-2002. Edited by Daniel J. Weitzner (W3C/MIT). Version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-patent-practice-20020124. Latest version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice. "This document describes current patent practice followed by the World Wide Web Consortium. This practice includes disclosure rules, process for setting goals for the licensing terms under which Recommendations can be implemented, and a dispute resolution process in the event these goals are not met."

The 2002-01 'Current Patent Practice' document "was prepared by the W3C Team and reviewed by the W3C Advisory Board. The Advisory Board recommended that this document be published at its 22-January-2002 meeting. On 1-March-2001, the Advisory Board suggested that the Team begin to implement the draft patent policies of the Patent Policy Working Group (PPWG). The patent practice described in this document represents the current state in the evolution of the Team's implementation. This document draws heavily on the work of the PPWG, although it has not been approved by that group... The current document relies on the definition of Royalty-Free licensing as described in the W3C Patent Policy Framework Last Call Working Draft. Note that current W3C patent practice does not require any W3C Member to make a Royalty-Free licensing commitment for essential patents it may hold. Such a commitment is under discussion in the Patent Policy Working Group for possible inclusion in of the final patent policy, but has not been implemented..."