Standards cannot be developed without a considerable investment of resources in expertise, consultations, administration, translation, etc. Therefore it is not financially possible for standards to be made available free of charge. Moreover, CEN and CENELEC Members depend on the income they generate through the sale of standards. Therefore, considerable attention is devoted to the copyright protection of standards and other deliverables. Stakeholders can use CEN-CENELEC copyrighted documents for commercial purposes in agreement with CEN and CENELEC and under certain conditions.
CEN-CENELEC Guide 10 on “Policy on dissemination, sales and copyright of CEN-CENELEC Publications” sets out the rules and modalities regarding the distribution and protection of any technical deliverables.
The issue of how patents relate to standards has been the subject of intensive debate among industry bodies, standard setting organisations, and academic circles, etc. An increasing number of standards based on patented technology are being successfully and widely developed. However, many believe that, while both standards and patents can promote innovation and market place adoption, there is little else that they have in common. Despite these differing opinions, patents in standardized technology are one of the issues that must be addressed during the development of standards.
CEN-CENELEC Guide 8 “Standardisation and intellectual property rights (IPR)” provide practical guidance to the participants in technical bodies on how to deal with patent-related matters.
The policy of CEN and CENELEC on the distribution of European standards is managed under the supervision of the Joint Commercial Advisory Group (JCAG) which is the joint CEN-CENELEC advisory committee on copyright, distribution and sales related to European standards and other publications affecting CEN, CENELEC and their Members.
In particular, the JCAG is responsible for advising the Administrative Boards on all issues concerning CEN and CENELEC commercial policies and proposing, elaborating and monitoring the commercial activities of CEN and CENELEC and their respective Members and National Committees. It reports directly to the CEN and CENELEC Administrative Boards.