The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to develop technical specifications that anyone can implement on a Royalty-Free basis. As part of its patent policy, W3C generally does not recommend specifications become Web standards if it is aware of patent claims which are essential to their implementation, but not available on Royalty-Free terms.
W3C’s Second Screen Working Group is currently working on an Open Screen Protocol that connects web browsers to different devices capable of rendering web content—e.g., smart TVs, HDMI dongles. A member of W3C and participant in the group working to develop the Open Screen Protocol has disclosed patents it believes are relevant to the protocol’s specification, and excluded certain claims from the W3C Royalty-Free License commitment. As the W3C Patent Policy requires, a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) is investigating the excluded patent claims. The PAG has publicly announced an open call for prior art—i.e., publications or other examples of technology required by the excluded patent claims that is available in the public domain or on terms consistent with W3C’s Royalty-Free Licensing Requirements.
To encourage people with the appropriate expertise to focus on particularly relevant elements of the excluded claims at the critical time periods, the W3C releases the following questions about prior art related to digital audio, digital imaging, and multimedia networking technology from the mid-2000s.
If you or others know of relevant prior art references, please send them to us, ideally with an explanation of why you believe they answer the above questions, at group-secondscreen-prior-art@w3.org. Submissions are welcome at any time. For best consideration, please send your submission before March 31, 2022.
For clarity, the W3C seeks prior art that is available in the public domain or on terms consistent with W3C’s Royalty-Free Licensing Requirements. Neither the W3C nor the Second Screen Working Group PAG is making or implying any comment whatsoever about the scope or validity of the excluded patent claims or their relevance to the Open Screen Protocol.