The IT Nerd

If you’re wondering about the title of this post, it will become clear shortly.

First, let’s get to the details. The W3C Web Applications Working Group, has been trying to come up with a standard for Widgets so that they not only work on any platform, but can update themselves. Apple has decided that  patent 5,764,992 which covers automatic software updates, cannot and will not be used royalty-free. That means that there now has to be a lot of work to get around this patent if widgets are to be standardized.

Here’s how it’s good for us. If the W3C went ahead and used Apple’s patent, Apple could cash in either through royalties or through lawsuits. Now because they’ve warned the W3C of it’s rather dubious patent, it can be avoided and Apple gets nothing. While it would have been nice if Apple had simply just said that anybody could use it royalty free and not look like Microsoft in the process, this will do nicely.

Oh, there’s coverage of this here, and here if you want some different views.

This entry was posted on April 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, Patents, Widgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.