Patent Troll sent me this:

Hi Daniel,

Maybe you are already aware of it since we questioned the W3C and Google about it, and sent about the same message, thanks to acknowledge the receipt and redirect to the right service at Mozilla if needed (are you still at Mozilla? Your Mozilla email address seem not to be working, if not thanks if you can let me know who can be the right contact at Mozilla).

While trying to participate to different W3C APIs, I completely missed the Web Components specifications, for the reason explained below.

We own the patent hereattached, it is in French, trying to translate the specific patent language for the main claim gives:

1- A process to display a gadget coming from a source web page from a web site in a target web page including the following steps:
    a) individualization of different objects contained in the source web page, each of them being defined by a proper content and proper description parameters describing a structure of the object
    b) selection of at least one of the object in the source page
    c) selective extraction, for the selected object, of its description parameters and its content, or of its description parameters alone; and
    d) display of the gadget in the target web page, from the description parameters and content, or from the description parameters alone

This is very exactly what the "Web Components" specifications are doing, we have checked the anteriority and from our standpoint clearly nothing related did exist before we issued the patent in 2010.

Therefore the projects implementing these specifications such as Google Polymer and Mozilla X-Tags, are reusing the concepts of the patent and an exception should be made for them in France.

The patent extends the perimeter of the Web Components, since additionnaly it describes methods (called "Extract Widget" [1]) to extract real time web pieces and to retarget it on any devices, such as mobiles.

Ironically, Google that is presenting the Web Components as a big revolution in the web development today, did kill all of our projects ([2] to [8]) around this patent some years ago when Google deprecated its Search API, and Google did not seem to really study at that time our queries regarding possible synergies between the patent's concepts and their projects, exactly related to what they are doing today.

We are more focusing now on privacy/anonymity projects ([9] and [10]), so we have not checked yet very precisely who could possibly reuse some other parts of the patent but we will.

We are willing to transfer the rights of the patent with a reasonable agreement asssuming that it can help us to finance these projects and solve some financial issues we have related to past aborted projects mentioned above, maybe it can be coordinated by the W3C, even if the patent is only covering France we would not like to bring this matter to further steps if we don't get within reasonable delays the feedback of the different parties that we contacted about it.

Regards,

Aymeric

------------

My reply to patent troll:

Salutations Aymeric,

As you know, I worked at Mozilla on Web Components, and have been involved in open source web technology for quite some time. However, I recently left Mozilla to start an emerging maple syrup conglomerate - but as it happens, it's very much tied to the fate of Web Components. Let me tell you a bit about it:

Our maple syrup company relies solely on online sales. Our primary strategy for driving exposure to our product is a web component that lets site owners easily include an interactive maple syrup experience (ex: one of the component's views is a WebGL syrup bottle that lets you 'feel' how the syrup pours). This web component generates all our click-through and sales, which in turn earns site owners Maple Coins (our internal, blockchain-based digital tokens, which can be cashed out for their equivalent value in our delicious maple syrup).

Web Components are central to our maple syrup sales strategy, so we'd hate to lose the ability to use them. We are in a bit of a sticky situation though (no pun intended): we have all the company's investment capital tied up in a secure store of syrup we use to back the value of our Maple Coins. It has worked out well so far, as all of our supply chain partners and site affiliates have agreed to use Maple Coins as the exclusive payment instrument for settlement, and subsequently, cash them out for syrup. As such, the only way we would be able to pay for the rights you speak of is in Maple Coins.

Please advise us on how you would like to proceed - we don't want anything to interrupt the flow of our syrup business.

Respectfully,

Daniel Buchner
Chairman and CEO
Syrupdipidy, Inc