A variety of constituencies from the West have taken it upon themselves to
 reach out to China to “educate” the Chinese about the existing global
 standards development infrastructure, and to urge them to take part in that 
infrastructure in the same way as do other countries. Clearly, having 
China, with a single national vote, participate in ISO, IEC and ITU would 
be best for the status quo players that have become skillful in
participating in those organizations through decades of effort. It’s 
interesting to ask, however, whether that course of action, without more, 
would truly be best for China and its people.
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In October, Talkstandards.com hosted an open forum focused towards issues related to interoperability within European standardization and framed against the backdrop of the current EU activities. In addition to a series of expert keynote contributions (summarized below – please follow the links to access the articles in full) two exclusive interviews were conducted. The event can be found her: www.talkstandards.com/reforming-eu-standardization.

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All forum discussion will take place on this page!

This event (Thurs October 14th –  3pm GMT / 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern / 5pm CET / 11pm Beijing) is set to discuss mobile payment and transfer services.

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This month’s discussion asks whether the standards marketplace is delivering too little interoperability. Classical economic theory would say, with a nod to Leibniz, that the market is delivering exactly the amount of interoperability that its forces require at equilibrium. If users and stakeholders demand it, standards bodies will deliver and cooperate — probably exactly to that extent.

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Address the “holes” in existing standardization:

1. Help define the basic terms.
Without clear definitions, practice will be slipshod.
• What is a standard? It is not practical to transfer anything without a reference. Such ubiquity strongly suggests a “physical” law and mathematical form.
• What is an open standard? Most current descriptions are very biased.
• What is an open standardization process? Is it no IPR? Is RAND sufficient? Free standards documents? Fair representation of all stakeholders? World wide agreement?
“Open standards” is like “democratic government,” it is easy to say but very hard to achieve. First define it. (This task is underway in the EU, but deserves much higher visibility.) Then work to make it more likely.

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On the 6th October 2010, the European Commission published a communication on the Innovation Union. In order to realise the Innovation Union, barriers to bring ideas to the market should be removed. Among various obstacles, it is pointed out that a “faster setting of interoperable standards” is needed. The EC announces for 2011 a “legislative proposal on standardisation, which will inter alia cover the ICT sector, in order to speed up and modernise standard-setting to enable interoperability and foster innovation in fast-moving global markets.” However, it remains rather unclear how this objective will be reached. The only concrete policy approach is the announced “programme to anticipate new standardisation needs and integration of standards into R&D projects in the research Framework Programme.”

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There is an ongoing debate in the European commission about the review of the European Standardisation System. As per the draft report on the future of European standardization, The European Commission is currently working on a “Standardisation Package”, which will include a legislative proposal aimed to revise the existing legal framework on European standardisation and an umbrella Communication which will set the standardisation policy for the next decade.

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The importance of standards in our developing industrial society is growing as technology moves into increasingly complex territories. This common ground helps to ensure that the assortment of technological possibilities is kept to a necessary minimum, whilst also establishing a widespread level of compatibility and quality.

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This exclusive interview with Mrs Elena Santiago, CEN-CENELEC Director General, was conducted for Talkstandards.com via email during October 2010 in relation to the Open Forum “Reforming EU Standardization“.

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PART 7 – U.S. Law and Policy Prefers Standards Developed in the Marketplace: the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 and OMB Circular A-119

For this and the next installment, I will focus for the most part on U.S. law and policy as it provides a most clear illustration. In the context of standard setting, there is a substantial early history of the government as the exclusive or predominant standards-setting entity, rooted in its British heritage dating back many hundreds of years.
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