| Site |
Description |
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.
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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Society, historical documents, a bibliography, FAQs on the various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.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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NSSN
- A National Resource for Global Resources
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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.
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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.
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The
Center for Global Standards Analysis
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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.
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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 |