When can a Working Group participant exclude a patent?
During the life of a Working Group (until it closes) under the W3C Patent Policy, certain events on the Recommendation Track create exclusion opportunities for Working Group participants; those events are publication of First Public Working Drafts and Last Call Working Drafts. Each exclusion opportunity has associated with it both a duration and a set of features in the specification. For the duration of a given exclusion opportunity, a Working Group participant can exclude one or more patent claims with respect to the associated set of features. After that opportunity has passed, the participant may no longer exclude a patent claim with respect to any of those features. At the next exclusion opportunity, a participant may exclude a patent claim only with respect to the new features in the specification available when the opportunity begins, and only for the duration of that opportunity. Any participant who joins a Working Group after the end of an exclusion opportunity must exclude an
Related Questions
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