Web Fonts Working Group - IPR
Licensing Commitments
Participants in this group have made certain licensing commitments by joining the group. In addition to these Participants, non-participating W3C Member may have made licensing commitments.
W3C Members not participating in this group who wish to make the same licensing commitments for specifications developed by this group may do so through a Join form for licensing commitments from non-participating Members.
Other parties making a substantive contribution to the work of the group need to make a Royalty-Free patent commitment, as described in section 6.2.6 of the Process. Team contacts will provide instructions for recording the non-participant licensing commitment before the contribution can be accepted.
Participation
- W3C Member Organizations
-
- Adobe
- Apple Inc.
- Google LLC
- Loongson Technology Corporation Limited
- Microsoft Corporation
- Monotype
- Mozilla Foundation
- Skynet Technologies
- Wikimedia Foundation
Note: Log in to see links to organizations if you have member access
- Invited Experts
-
- Bianca Berning
- John Hudson
- Vladimir Levantovsky
- Jason Pamental
- Team members
-
- Chris Lilley
See also the list of individuals participating in this group.
The Call for Participation for this group was announced on 2023-03-29; see the Patent Policy FAQ for information about continued participation before re-joining the group.
Specifications published by the Group
The following is the list of specifications produced by the Web Fonts Working Group that have associated disclosures obligations, and possible licensing obligations under the W3C Patent Policy.
| Document under the W3C Patent Policy | Patent Disclosure | Patent Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
| WOFF File Format 1.0 | disclose | exclude |
| WOFF File Format 2.0 | disclose | exclude |
| Incremental Font Transfer | disclose | exclude |
| Range Request Incremental Font Transfer | disclose | exclude |
| Document not/no longer under the W3C Patent Policy | Patent Disclosure | Patent Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
| WOFF 2.0 Evaluation Report | disclose | Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP) |
| Progressive Font Enrichment: Evaluation Report | disclose | Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP) |
| Fonts for the Web: Rationale, 1996 | disclose | Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP) |
Patent Disclosures and Claim Exclusions
This section summarizes patent disclosures by participants in W3C's Web Fonts Working Group as required by section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
W3C takes no position regarding either:
- the validity or scope of any intellectual property right or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology, or
- the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available from those not participating in this group.
Where disclosure is required by a W3C Member, the AC Representative makes the disclosure.
Anyone else may also make a disclosure.
Known Disclosures
| Disclosures for WOFF File Format 2.0 | Licensing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Issued patent '6,031,622' (USA) held by Monotype disclosed on 2014-06-05 | Patent Policy Obligations | Licensing details |
How to Make a Patent Disclosure
W3C Members and Invited Experts (including those not participating in this group) wishing to disclose a patent for any specification produced by the Web Fonts Working Group should use the Web Fonts Working Group patent disclosure form.
Disclosures from the general public should be sent to the W3C Staff.
For specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, parties that commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms are not required to disclose patents. Any party (not just the Working Group Participants) may commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms and may do so by following the instructions in the next section.
Claim Exclusions
Only Web Fonts Working Group participants may exclude patent claims concerning specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, per section 4 of the W3C Patent Policy. To make an exclusion, participants should use the Web Fonts Working Group patent claim exclusion form, but only after first disclosing the patent.
Exclusion Opportunities
The Patent Policy FAQ provides detailed information about exclusion opportunities, that is, when a Working Group Participant can exclude a patent claim.
Each exclusion opportunity has a duration. See section 4.1 of the W3C Patent Policy for information on how the exclusion deadline is calculated.
At each exclusion opportunity, Participants may exclude patent claims with respect to a body of text. The Exclusion Draft is the reference body of text for the current exclusion opportunity.
Note: At each new exclusion opportunity (e.g., in the case of a second Candidate Recommendation Snapshot), exclusions are only with respect to differences since the previous reference body of text. These differences may be less than an entire document, and the summary below does not address that granularity. Also, in some edge cases (discussed in the FAQ), Participants, depending on when they joined the Working Group, will have different Exclusion Drafts; the summary below does not reflect this case.
Exclusion Opportunities
No current exclusion opportunities
View previous exclusion opportunities
- Incremental Font Transfer via Range Request
- Call for exclusion started on 2022-01-25, opportunity until 2022-06-24
- WOFF File Format 2.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2022-03-10, opportunity until 2022-05-09
- Incremental Font Transfer
- Call for exclusion started on 2021-09-07, opportunity until 2022-02-04
- WOFF File Format 2.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2016-03-15, opportunity until 2016-05-14
- WOFF File Format 2.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2014-05-13, opportunity until 2014-10-10
- WOFF File Format 1.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2010-11-16, opportunity until 2011-01-15
- WOFF File Format 1.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2010-07-27, opportunity until 2010-12-24
- WOFF File Format 1.0
- Call for exclusion started on 2010-07-27, opportunity until 2010-12-24
Additional Licensing Information
As described in section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy:
All Working Group participants are encouraged to provide a contact from which licensing information can be obtained and other relevant licensing information. Any such information will be made publicly available along with the patent disclosures for the Working Group in question.
Patent holders may:
- Provide additional licensing information for documents produced by this Working Group
- Provide the same additional licensing information for all documents with associated licensing obligations produced by this Working Group, or
- Provide additional licensing information for any W3C document with associated licensing obligations produced by any W3C Working Group under the W3C Patent Policy.
Such licensing information should be sent to the W3C Staff.
Please recall that, per section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy, a W3C Royalty-Free license:
may not impose any further conditions or restrictions on the use of any technology, intellectual property rights, or other restrictions on behavior of the licensee, but may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: choice of law and dispute resolution.