European Commission Eyes Update Of EU Standards-Setting Policy 01/06/2016 by Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)As standardisation increasingly takes place at the global level, Europe needs a speedier, more streamlined way to set the technical specifications that define requirements for products, production processes, services and test methods, the European Commission said today. As part of its single market strategy, the EC announced plans for a joint initiative on standardisation (JIS), guidance to boost the development of European standards, and an annual reporting system among EU institutions on how the standardisation policy is working and contributing to competitiveness, jobs and growth. The EC said it also intends to “provide guidance to ensure that the licensing frameworks for essential patents used in standards … can continue to bring benefits to innovation and implementation of new technologies such as 5G or the Internet of Things.” The EC also helps fund open source software and wants more use of open source elements via more integration of open source communities into standards development organisations, it said. European standards are voluntary, market-driven and adopted by standards bodies such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute or the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization, the EC said. The new JIS, which includes the EC, European and national standards organisations, EU member states, small and mid-sized businesses, consumer groups, trade unions, environmental organisations and industry associations, is an effort develop a common vision and concrete actions to tackle standardisation challenges, it said. The JIS, which will be signed on 13 June, will craft specific actions to be announced on World Standards Day (14 October), the commission said. By the end of 2019, the JIS is expected to come up with, among other things, a series of initiatives and plans for the timely development of standards; and the prioritisation of standardisation activities between the EU and standardisation stakeholders. The EC also proposed a 2017 work programme for European standardisation focused on the information and communication technologies and services sectors as priority areas. While standards for goods have been around for decades, the development of service standards – which specify requirements a service must fulfil to establish it is working properly – is more recent “and they have been slow to take off,” the EC said. Although services account for 70 percent of the EU economy, service standards form on 2 percent of all European standards, the EC said. Divergent national service standards can fragment the single market for services, it said. The new actions seek to provide more clarity on service standards and how they can be used; help the EC and standards bodies identify problems and gaps where European service standards could be useful; and help lower national barriers faced by service providers, it said. The new approach “starts immediately,” the EC said. It will engage with standard setters and stakeholders to agree on an approach for promoting the development and use of service standards and launch a targeted review of national service standards next year. The press release is here. A Q&A is here. Image Credits: European Commission Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Dugie Standeford may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch."European Commission Eyes Update Of EU Standards-Setting Policy" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.