Had Tim Berners-Lee patented his creation, the World Wide Web, he could have become a multi-billionaire. Instead, he gave it away, believing that would be the best way for the Web to flourish.

He was right, and because of this efforts, billions of Web pages available to hundreds of millions of people.

But now, the organization devoted to creating Web standards, the W3C, has proposed its recommendations be patented. Though many would remain royalty free, others may require a small fee be paid to use.

Not only would this increase the cost of Web design software and browsers, it risks stifling the open spirit the Web was founded on 20 years ago.

The W3C extended its deadline for comments from September 30 to October 11, so if you have an opinion on this, please make it known.