New EU Cooperation Guidelines Seen Aiding Standardization

PCW - A leading open standards organization has welcomed the European Union's new rules on industry cooperation, adopted by the European Commission on Tuesday.

In the new, so-called "horizontal" guidelines, the Commission outlined conditions when industry competitors can share information without falling foul of the E.U.'s strict competition laws. One such condition occurs when the information sharing is done to allow standardization.

... "We believe the guidelines will have the desired effect of boosting transparency in the standardization process. We wholeheartedly support the decision to allow ex-ante disclosure of intellectual property rights on innovations in a standard. This will give legal clarity to others that wish to license the innovation and build it into their own products," said Openforum Europe's chief executive officer Graham Taylor.