The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has developed an Action Brief for standards developing organizations (SDOs) on issues surrounding standards that are incorporated by reference (or “IBR’d”) into law.
IBR is a practice by federal, state, local, and Tribal authorities of referencing standards into regulations. SDOs make their works available for use by governmental entities in setting safety and other regulations when those entities deem it in the public interest, with the understanding that these works will retain their copyright protection. This provides SDOs the ability to maintain control of the works that they create and to generate revenue from the sale and licensing of these works, which, in turn, enables SDOs to sustain their ongoing standards creation, refinement, and updating. Recent case law, however, is trending towards limiting copyright protection in IBR’d standards.
“What Standard Developing Organizations (SDOs) Need to Know About Incorporation By Reference (IBR)” informs SDOs of current IBR issues, and provides recommendations about how SDOs might look at their own current and future business models in light of the changing IBR landscape.
Topics covered in the Action Brief include:
