Online Resources Directory
American National Standards Institute
ANSI administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system. Its website regularly includes materials and links to other online resources relating to standards development and antitrust law.
Cover Pages, an Online Resource for Markup Languages Technologies
The Cover Pages, a constantly updated Internet based resource, describes its mission as to provide: "A comprehensive Web-accessible reference collection supporting the SGML/XML family of (meta) markup language standards and their application. The principal objective in this public access knowledgebase is to promote and enable the use of open, interoperable standards-based solutions that protect digital information and enhance the integrity of communication. A secondary objective in The Cover Pages is to provide reference material on enabling technologies compatible with descriptive markup language standards and applications: object modeling, semantic nets, ontologies, authority lists, document production systems, and conceptual modeling. NB. This statement and the resource itself are works in progress, subject to continuous revision." The site itself is even broader and more content rich than this summary suggests, with sections on Technology and Society, historical documents, a bibliography, FAQs on the various markup languages, and many other useful resources compiled by Editor Robin Cover. The site is hosted by OASIS Open, and underwritten by corporate sponsors.
Department of Justice
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice shares responsibility for enforcing the US antitrust laws and regulations with the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission. The Antitrust division states its mission to be the promotion and protection of the competitive business process and the American economy through antitrust law enforcement. The Division prosecutes violations of the antitrust laws in virtually all industries and levels of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution and marketing by bringing criminal suits or leading civil suits against offenders.
Federal Trade Commission
The Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission shares responsibility for enforcing the US antitrust laws and regulations with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Bureau is a consumer protection agency mandated by the FTC Act to protect the marketplace from unfair methods of competition, and to prevent unfair or deceptive acts or practices that harm consumers. The Bureau has authority to file cases in both federal court and special administrative forums.
FTC Publications:
GTW Associates
This site follows US and international cases and other developments relating to antitrust laws and standards development. It includes helpful articles, links and other standards resources.
Interoperability Clearing House (Glossary and Acronyms)
The technology world in general is the home of a labyrinth of technical terms and acronyms. Consortia agglomerate technology, and thus can become an even more impenetrable thicket of jargon and abbreviations. ICH, a collaboration of other consortia, vendors and government agencies, maintains an extensive glossary of terms relevant to standard setting consortia, as well as a lengthy explanatory list of acronyms often used by technology companies, government agencies and other participants in consortia.
IPO.org
IPO.org lists a variety of news and information important to owners of intellectual property. Among other features, the website provides links to current news articles and recent court opinions relating to intellectual property, information regarding IPO position statements and policies, legislative issues, materials from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, including current bills, and links to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Founded in 1901, NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Commerce Department's Technology Administration. It states its mission as developing and promoting measurements, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve quality of life. NIST has four major programs - the NIST Laboratories, Advanced Technology Program, Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Baldrige National Quality Program - through which it works with U.S. companies, universities, and numerous other organizations to build critical US technical support system infrastructure.
NIST publications include the following:
NSSN — A National Resource for Global Resources
This site is supported by a cooperative partnership between the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), U.S. private-sector standards organizations, government agencies, and international standards organizations. NSSN provides technical data and information about important developments in standardization on a global basis. The site permits the user to locate and access up to date commercial and regulatory documents, status information regarding individual standards and contact data relating to standards throughout the world. According to the site, it tracks over 270,000 standards, and all data is updated on a current basis. While some services are provided on a paid subscriber basis, there is a wealth of information which is available without cost at the site.
Standards Action
For updates on the status of standards in the US, you may look to Standards Action, a bi-weekly newsletter from ANSI that tracks the consideration and adoption status of American National Standards. The newsletter also includes listings of those standards upon which comments are currently being accepted.
The Center for Global Standards Analysis
The Center for Global Standards Analysis, a nonprofit corporation, was formed in 1999 to (1) develop education and research programs that will facilitate the study of United States Standards Policies and global standardization; and (2) provide a neutral forum in which students, universities, government departments and agencies, national, regional and global standards organizations, associations and corporations can meet to discuss United States Standards Policies, global standardization and develop creative strategies. The Center is hosted by the Catholic University of America, and the site lists articles, syllabi, and conference proceedings, among other material.
World Standards Services Network (WSSN)
The WSSN is a virtual organization comprising a network of publicly accessible World Wide Web servers maintained by standards organizations around the world. The objective of WSSN is to simplify access to international, regional and national standards information by creating a comprehensive global network through which users can navigate to identify and obtain the information they need about standards and related activities.
US and EU notices of Standards and Conformity Assessment; Regulatory; Technology and Trade Policy & Practice
This site, hosted by GTW Associates, an international standards and trade policy consultancy, provides three categories of information: (1) US Federal Register notices (see: http://gtwassociates.com/GTWsubscriptions/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38, (2) the Official Journal of the European Union (see: http://gtwassociates.com/GTWsubscriptions/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39, and (3) Policy studies; procurements and contracts relating to standards (see: http://gtwassociates.com/GTWsubscriptions/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40). Free access of archival material is available to guests, while up-to-date material is available on a paid, password-protected basis to those who register and pay a fee. There are a variety of search engines provided at each portion of the site to facilitate information gathering.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
WIPO's objective is the promotion of the effective protection and use of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation with and among Member States and all other stakeholders. The organization seeks to achieve this goal by promoting creation of an environment and infrastructure conducive to an enhanced understanding of the contribution of IP to human life through economic, social and cultural development, and, in particular, by assisting developing countries in their capacity building for greater access to, and use of, the IP system. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, WIPO is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations system of organizations. It administers 23 international treaties dealing with different aspects of intellectual property protection. The Organization counts 180 nations as member states. An Intellectual Property Rights overview is available at the following webpage: http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/overview.html