IEC, ISO, ITU Agree on Common Patent Policy
March 23, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), under the banner of the World Standards Cooperation (WSC), adopted a harmonized approach to address the inclusion of patented technology in standards.
The policy adopted by the three organizations encourages the disclosure of patented technology, which is necessary for the implementation of a standard before the standardization process has been completed, said the ITU.
It allows for companies' innovative technologies to be included in standards as long as such intellectual property is made available under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and conditions.
In addition, the IEC, ISO and ITU jointly adopted guidelines for the implementation of the common patent policy and a patent statement and license declaration form.
In today's commercial world, especially in information and communication technologies (ICT), there is significant investment in R&D activity. A solid patent policy provides crucial investment protection while also opening up intellectual property resources for broad implementation across the industry, said the ITU.
"ITU's standards-setting work is closely linked with innovation and new research," said Malcolm Johnson, director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU.
"Today, it is difficult to develop technical standards without implicating patents. On the other hand, we have to take into account the interests of end-users. Therefore a balance must be found. We believe that this policy will encourage industry to share its intellectual property with implementers of standards on a reasonable basis knowing that their interests will be protected."
"The fine-tuning of this policy to achieve exactly the right balance - ownership versus sharing of intellectual property - is no small achievement," said Alan Bryden, secretary-general of the ISO. "In this way we enable international standards to be used to successfully disseminate innovation with a clear set of guidelines regarding the disclosure of and commitment to license the use of patented technologies. It is an excellent example of the cooperation between the three WSC partners."
Each of the three WSC organizations also has an online patent database to facilitate the work of the standards developers and to assist companies wishing to implement international standards/recommendations that include patented technologies.
Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU).