In W3C terms, a "Recommendation" is the final standard. HTML5 is currently a Working Draft, but that status isn't really important. W3C's patent policy basicall

In W3C terms, a "Recommendation" is the final standard. HTML5 is currently a Working Draft, but that status isn't really important. W3C's patent policy basically says if you participate in the Working Group developing the standard, you agree to a royalty free license of any patents of yours that are required to implement it. If Canvas goes in HTML5, Apple has to freely license whatever patents on it that are required for it. And if I'm not mistaken, this is already binding at this point--Apple can't revoke this even if they were to leave the Working Group. This was an issue years ago because WHAT-WG (which is not part of W3C) did not have such a policy. Today it seems to be a non-issue to everyone who would know.