TIA Government Affairs addresses ICT standards-related policy issues, including issues relating to the role of government and impact on international trade and intellectual property rights. TIA believes that voluntary, open and consensus-based standards supported by governments, which include the protection of intellectual property rights, is key to enhancing global competitiveness and enabling innovation in the ICT industry.

Promoting Openness and Transparency in Standards Development

TIA Government Affairs supports the widely accepted definition of an open standard reflected by the ITU’s Telecommunications Sector (ITU-T) and the Global Standards Collaboration’s (GSC) Resolution GSC-12/05, which reflect the following elements:

  • Standards are developed and/or approved and maintained by a collaborative consensus-based process
  • Processes used to develop and/or approve and maintain standards are transparent
  • Materially-affected and interested parties are not excluded from any standards development and/or approval and maintenance process
  • Standards are subject to reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) intellectual property rights (IPT) policies that do not mandate, but may permit the licensing of essential intellectual property without compensation
  • Standards are published and made available to the general public under reasonable terms