WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/GEN/24 
22 December 2005 
 
 (05-6242) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
 
   
INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE ISO AND THE IEC AT THE  
TBT COMMITTEE MEETING 2 NOVEMBER 2005 
 
Agenda Item 4(b):  Triennial Review
 
 
 
 The following information was provided  by the Internatio nal Organization for 
Standardization (ISO)  and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)  at the TBT 
Committee meeting of 2 November 2005.   
_______________ 
 
 
I. ISO/IEC POLICY ON REFERENCE TO PATENTED ITEMS 
1. International Standards not only facilitate trade,  but also the dissemination of technology and 
good practices, in particular to developing countries.  Their content is often of a technical nature.  It 
may therefore occur that technical aspects containe d in standards may be covered by patent rights, 
especially in areas of new technologies.  Considerin g the desirability of facilitating the dissemination 
of technical innovation, it is acceptable in principle that standards contain patented elements, but ISO 
and IEC consider that, as far as their standards are concerned, adequate information should be 
available, and that their use should be guarantee d worldwide on reasonable and non discriminatory 
terms.  They have accordingly develope d a joint patent policy to that effect. 
2. This policy is described in clause 2.14 of Part  1 of the ISO/IEC Directives, Procedures for the 
technical work. Annex F of Part 2 of the Directives, Rules for the drafting and structure of 
International Standards , provides texts to be included in Inte rnational Standards when referring to 
patent rights. 
II. EXTRACT FROM ISO/IEC DIRECTIVES, PART 1 
A. 
TEXT OF EXTRACT  
2.14 Reference to patented rights 
 
 2.14.1 If, in exceptional situations, technical r easons justify such a step, there is no 
objection in principle to preparing an Internatio nal Standard in terms which include the use of 
items covered by patent rights - defined as patents, utility models and other statutory rights 
based on inventions, including any published applications for any of the foregoing - even if 
the terms of the standard are such that there are no alternative means of compliance.  The 
rules given below and in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2004, Annex F shall be applied.  
  2.14.2  If technical reasons justify the preparation of a document in terms which include 
the use of items covered by patent rights, the following procedures shall be complied with. 
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Page 2  
 
 a) The originator of a proposal for a do cument shall draw the attention of the 
committee to any patent rights of which the originator is aware and considers 
to cover any item of the proposal. Any pa rty involved in the preparation of a 
document shall draw the attention of th e committee to any patent rights of 
which it becomes aware during any stage in the development of the 
document. 
 
B. E
XPLANATORY COMMENT  
3. Within ISO and IEC, proposals to prepare ne w standards are generally submitted by national 
bodies, although other parties, defined in Part 1 of the ISO/IEC Directives, may also make proposals.  
Proposals are to be submitted using a special form, one of the boxes on which requires the proposer to 
indicate whether the proposal concerns patented items and if so to provide details.  All the experts that 
are members of the national committee of the na tional body making a proposal are consequently 
required to inform the national body if they are aware of patents relevant to the proposal.  It is to be 
noted that this provision is considered to apply equally to pending as well as granted patents. 
4. During the development of a standard, individual experts or national bodies, may contribute 
material to be incorporated in the standard, and they  are under the same obligation as the originator of 
the proposal to prepare the standard to draw attention to any patent rights of which they are aware. 
5. The second sentence places an obligation on an y party involved in the development of the 
standard to draw attention to any patent rights of which they become aware at any stage in the 
development of the standard. 
6. It is to be noted that the term used is "patent rights of which they are aware".  ISO and IEC do 
not require proposers or other partie s to carry out patent searches. 
C. TEXT OF EXTRACT (CONTINUED ) 
 b) If the proposal is accepted on technical grounds, the originator shall ask any 
holder of such identified patent rights for a statement that the holder would be 
willing to negotiate worldwide licenses under his rights with applicants 
throughout the world on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and 
conditions.  Such negotiations are left  to the parties concerned and are 
performed outside ISO and/or IEC.  A record of the right holder's statement 
shall be placed in the registry of the ISO Central Secretariat or IEC Central 
Office as appropriate, and shall be re ferred to in the introduction to the 
relevant document (see ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2004, F.3).  If the right 
holder does not provide such a statem ent, the committee concerned shall not 
proceed with inclusion of an item covered by a patent right in the document 
without authorization from ISO Council or IEC Council Board as appropriate. 
 
D. EXPLANATORY COMMENT  
7. ISO and IEC do not, and are not in a position to, determine what constitute reasonable terms 
and conditions. This is left to the market players to  agree through their normal negotiation processes, 
which, as noted, are performed outside ISO/IEC. To  date, there have been no instances in which ISO 
or IEC have been asked to review a standard because the licensing arrangements were deemed to be 
unreasonable.  G/TBT/GEN/24 
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E. TEXT OF EXTRACT (CONTINUED ) 
 c) A document shall not be published until the statements of the holders of all 
identified patent rights have been received, unless the council board 
concerned gives authorization. 
 
2.14.3  Should it be revealed after publication of a document that licenses under patent rights, 
which appear to cover items included in the do cument, cannot be obtained under reasonable 
and non-discriminatory terms and conditions, th e document shall be re ferred back to the 
relevant committee for further consideration. 
 F. E
XPLANATORY COMMENT  
8. Explanatory comment:  ISO and IEC technical work is carried out in a decentralized manner, 
responsibility for the administration (secretariat) of a technical committee or subcommittee being 
assigned to one of the national bodies.  Decisions, however, are taken by all the participating members 
of a committee on the basis of consensus and all ISO or IEC national members receive and are 
entitled to vote and comment on draft International St andards.  In the first instance, therefore, in a 
situation as described in 2.14.3, the matter would be referred to the secretariat of the relevant 
committee which would then be responsible for referring the matter to the committee as a whole. 
9. According to the circumstances, the commi ttee would principally have the options to: 
(i) amend the document to remove the element covered by patent rights; (ii) initiate a full revision of 
the document, again removing the element covered by  patent rights; (iii) withdraw the International 
Standard. 
III. EXTRACT FROM ISO/IEC DIRECTIVES, PART 2, ANNEX F 
A. TEXT OF EXTRACT  
F.1 All drafts submitted for comment shall incl ude on the cover page  the following text: 
 
"Recipients of this draft are invited to subm it, with their comments, notification of any 
relevant patent rights of which they are aware and to provide supporting documentation." 
 
F.2 A published document for which no patent rights are identified during the preparation 
thereof, shall contain the following notice in the foreword: 
 
"Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the 
subject of patent rights. ISO (and/or) IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or 
all such patent rights." 
 F.3 A published document for which patent rights have been identified during the 
preparation thereof shall include the following notice in the introduction:  
 
"The International Organization for Stan dardization (ISO) (and/or) International 
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) draws attention to the fact that it is claimed that 
compliance with this document may involve the us e of a patent concerning (subject matter..) 
given in (..subclause..). 
 
ISO (and/or) IEC take(s) no position concerning  the evidence, validity and scope of this 
patent right. 
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The holder of this patent right has assured ISO (a nd/or) IEC that he/she  is willing to negotiate 
licenses under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions with applicants 
throughout the world. In this respect, the statement of the holder of this patent right is 
registered with ISO (and/or) IEC. Information may be obtained from: 
 
 (name of holder of patent right) 
 (address) 
 
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the 
subject of patent rights other than those identif ied above. ISO (and/or) IEC shall not be held 
responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights." 
 
B. E
XPLANATORY COMMENT  
10. By the above disclaimers, ISO and IEC leave it to  the user of the standard to determine the 
validity of any referenced patents while also dr awing attention to the possibility that unidentified 
patents may also exist.  
IV. AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION 
11. In addition to being included in the ISO/IEC Directives, which are publicly available on the 
ISO and IEC websites, the ISO and IEC also make information about their policy concerning patent 
rights available through the ISO/IEC Information Centre (www.standardsinfo.net) and through the 
following organization-specific links: 
(a) for ISO:   www.iso.org/patents 
(b) for IEC:   www.iec.ch/tctools/patent-expl.htm 
12. Similarly, both organizations maintain online, publicly accessible databases of standards 
including references to patented items:   
(a) for ISO:   www.iso.org/patents 
(b) for IEC:   www.iec.ch/tctools/patent_decl.htm 
13. As noted above, the International Standards them selves contain all the necessary information 
to facilitate their use. 
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