In theory, yes. But there are a few caveats to that:
1. CERN wouldn’t have been able to patent anything too generalised because there was prior art (Gopher)
2. Thus if the patent was too expensive developers would have just used a similar technology (bare in mind it took quite a few years before the web to evolve from a toy, then something that companies “needed” but it wasn’t contributing massively to their bottom line, to what it is today where a great many businesses sole market is web based).
3. Even if it had somehow became part of industry standard or CERN had achieved a vague patent that prevented similar implementations from coexisting, Europe has this thing called (if I remember the acronym correctly) FRAND patents where patents which are required as part of a standard have to be fairly licensed.
None of this means CERN couldn’t have potentially made a lot from HTML & HTTP. But I also think part of the reason it was the success it was, was because it was a royalty free open specification.
Yep, I agree that any or all of those would apply (note that regarding F/RAND, a holder can refuse, and then the standard must exclude their IP) but at the same time we have seen over and over that corporations (and the nation-states that back them up) can get in really aggressive patent wars if they see fit, even over the concept of black, glossy rectangular cuboids...
1. CERN wouldn’t have been able to patent anything too generalised because there was prior art (Gopher)
2. Thus if the patent was too expensive developers would have just used a similar technology (bare in mind it took quite a few years before the web to evolve from a toy, then something that companies “needed” but it wasn’t contributing massively to their bottom line, to what it is today where a great many businesses sole market is web based).
3. Even if it had somehow became part of industry standard or CERN had achieved a vague patent that prevented similar implementations from coexisting, Europe has this thing called (if I remember the acronym correctly) FRAND patents where patents which are required as part of a standard have to be fairly licensed.
None of this means CERN couldn’t have potentially made a lot from HTML & HTTP. But I also think part of the reason it was the success it was, was because it was a royalty free open specification.