Do Participants in a Working Group have licensing obligations with respect to Recommendations produced by groups in which they are not participating?
No. Section 3.1 of the Patent Policy states (emphasis added): As a condition of participating in a Working Group, each participant (W3C Members, W3C Team members, invited experts, and members of the public) shall agree to make available under W3C RF licensing requirements any Essential Claims related to the work of that particular Working Group. Recall, however, that implementers (whether or not they participated in the Working Group that produced the Recommendation) may incur licensing obligations through reciprocal licensing terms as permitted by section 5 of the Patent Policy. Please note that Participants in one W3C group may have disclosure obligations related to work in other W3C groups; see section 6 of the Patent Policy as well as question 19 and question 20.
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