This report was endorsed by the REX 1.0 Patent Advisory Group and announced on 3 August 2007. Subsequently the PAG was closed.
France Telecom, as a Participant of the WebAPI WG and SVG WG has excluded the following patents from W3C RF licensing commitment on the Remote Events for XML (REX) 1.0 specification:
Remote Events for XML (REX) 1.0 is an XML grammar for representing events as they are defined in DOM 3 Events , primarily but not exclusively for purposes of transmission. It enables one endpoint to interact remotely with another endpoint holding a DOM representation by sending it DOM Events as if they had occurred directly at the same location.
REX 1.0 is a joint work between the WebAPI Working Group and the SVG Working Group. REX, when applied to SVG to transmit DOM mutation events, was intended to allow for live updates to SVG animations in Web Applications, on mobile phones or the desktop. There are competing, non Royalty-Free standards from MPEG, BIFS and LASeR; the latter is also expected to be used in non Royalty-Free standard 3GPP DIMS.
Following the Patent Policy, W3C issued a call for exclusion on 3 May 2006. France Telecom excluded the patents mentioned above in the SVG Working Group and in the WebAPI Working Group. As a result of the November AC Meeting, W3C decided to trigger a Patent Advisory Group to enquire about the excluded patents and chartered the first REX PAG.
France Telecom joined the REX-PAG and explained scope and details about the excluded patents. All excluded patents represent the same idea that was registered in various jurisdictions. Serge Raes, patent counsel of France Telecom, came up with a good description/analysis of the patent [PDF Member only] and how it applies to use cases of REX 1.0.
Apart from exploring and trying to understand the patent in question, the REX-PAG explored the existence of prior art. Subsequently, a page with prior art was created. Relevant work which substantially pre-dates the patent application includes the Plan 9 operating system and the News Desktop from Sun Microsystems.
Finally, the work stalled due to patent uncertainties and the loss of the editor of the REX 1.0 Specification. In parallel, the W3C opened up a new Activity called Ubiquitous Web Applications(UWA). UWA decided to continue the work on REX with a different scope and approach to create REX 2.0. The PAG was officially notified of this move at the 19 June Meeting by Dave Raggett, UWA Activity Lead.
France Telecom is also a Member of the UWA Working Group, but many other Participants of WebAPI or SVG are not represented in the UWA WG. As a consequence, the PAG considered that the current composition of the PAG does not reflect the correct constituency to address the patent issue for REX 2.0. As REX 1.0 is not developed further, the PAG felt further addressing REX 1.0 would not be an appropriate way forward. On the other hand, this PAG and the materials collected may serve for issues around REX 2.0. If the patents are again excluded by France Telecom for REX 2.0, a new PAG will be triggered in accordance with the process set forth by the Patent Policy.