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IEC code of conduct fordelegates and experts

General introduction
At the beginning of each Technical Committee (TC)/
Subcommittee (SC) meeting, the chair shoulddraw the attention of delegates to this document
as follows: “Delegates are reminded that generalguidance on the conduct of delegates and experts
taking part in IEC meetings and contributing to IEC
work is given in the document ‘IEC code of conduct
for delegates and experts’, available on the IECwebsite”.

This document provides brief guidelines on anumber of issues which delegates and experts
may be confronted with as participants in theIEC Standards process. It provides information
additional to that given in the ISO/IEC Directives (allparts) and reference should be made to these fordetails.

3Conduct in meetings
The Chair is responsible for running any meetingand it is therefore important to let him/her carryout this task. There should be an agenda for all
meetings and discussion should revolve aroundeach individual item on the agenda. Do not try andstart discussion on other issues. Do not speak at ameeting unless the Chair has given you the floor,that is he/she has given you the right to speak. If
you want to speak, attract the Chair’s attention, byeither raising your hand or if you have a nameplate, raise it.

There are broadly two types of meetings that you
may find yourself taking part in: TC/SC meetingsand Working Group (WG), Project Team (PT),
Maintenance Team (MT), ad hoc Group (ahG)
meetings.
In a TC/SC meeting you take part as a delegate,
as the official representative of the National
Committee which has appointed you. That means
you have the obligation to present the views andtake position on issues as instructed by yourNational Committee. Normally, prior to a TC/SC
meeting, your National Committee will have helda meeting of its national mirror committee wherethese issues should have been discussed andinstructions given to the delegates attending theTC/SC meeting.

English is the working language in the IEC,
however it is not the first language of mostparticipants. If you are a native English speaker,
be prepared to make concessions to others. Speakclearly, use short sentences, avoid metaphors,irony and be aware that jokes and humour may
not translate very easily.

At a WG/PT/MT/ahG meeting you take part as anexpert, appointed by your National Committee,
but acting in a personal capacity and not as therepresentative of your National Committee. You
may obviously be requested to make reports on
your activities within such groups to your NC.

Make use of breaks and informal sessions to talkwith other delegates on issues. You’ll be surprised
how often it is possible to reach agreement on
matters which look intractable simply by having
people with differing views discuss the matterinformally.

In any meeting you will find people from aroundthe world, with different cultural practices on
conduct in meetings. You will therefore need to be
tolerant of other procedures and practices.

Be prepared to make concessions. A good meetingis one where everyone leaves satisfied with theresults achieved and not where there are winners
and losers.
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Conduct on electronic social media
Privacy laws differ across the many jurisdictions
where IEC meetings are held, so as to ensurecompliance with local laws and regulations,participants may not record audio or video of any
IEC meeting without the consent of all participants.
Any information posted to social media, discussion
groups, or web sites may not name individual
positions or companies when discussing eventsof the meeting. Whilst there’s nothing wrong withdisagreeing with someone or something, you
should do so in a manner which is respectful andnot abusive.

Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
can make a valuable contribution to spreading
information about the IEC as well as contributing
to the process of standards development, but they
will only do so if they are used wisely.
The lines between public and private, personal
and professional are blurred in online socialmedia. You are personally responsible for any
content you publish on such media (and are not a
representative of the IEC).
Remember that anything you publish will be visible
for a very long time, so protect your privacy. Don’t
say anything you might regret in five years’ time,or that you would prefer that your friends, family
and colleagues didn’t see.

Respect copyright (see p.10).

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Anti-trust, anti-competition issues
What are the antitrust and competition laws? Inthe U.S., it is called “antitrust law,” and elsewhere
it is called “competition law.” But regardlessof the label, most countries have substantiallysimilar laws regarding any acts that result in
unfair competition in the marketplace. Generally
speaking, most of the world prohibits agreements
and certain other activities that unreasonably
restrain trade.

output restrictions (for example, wherestandards participants or other competitors
agree on how much of a compliant productthey will each produce);

Competition authorities throughout the world
uniformly condemn actions that are referred to as“naked restraints on trade” – that is, agreementsthat do nothing more than limit competition
between competitors. The classic examples that
could arise in the standards process – and thekinds of violation that most frequently result incriminal prosecution for the individual participants
as well as their organisation – include:

There are many things you can discuss instandards meetings, but this is a non-exhaustive
list of topics that you cannot discuss in IEC
meetings:

allocations of customers or territories (forexample, where competitors agree on whereor to whom they will each sell compliant
products).

prices at which products or services
implementing the standard should be sold(“price” includes discounts, terms, and otherconditions of sale);price fixing (for example, where standards
participants or other competitors agree on
the prices that they will charge for compliantproducts);

profits or profit margins;individual companies’ market shares or sales
territories;

6allocation of customers, markets, productionlevels, or territories; or restricting thecustomers to whom, or territories in which, acompany may sell or resell products;

bidding (or terms of bids) or refraining frombidding to sell any product or service;
any matter which restricts any company’s
independence in setting prices, establishingproduction and sales levels, choosing themarkets in which it operates, or the manner inwhich it selects its customers and suppliers.

using standards or certification programmes
to exclude suppliers or competitors from themarketplace for any reason other than costperformance or technical considerations;Standards meetings are rather special in thatthey are one of the few areas where competingcompanies can meet with each other. The
competition authorities are aware of this andindeed encourage the standardization process, butparticipants must respect the limits of what they
can and cannot discuss.

conditioning the implementation of a standard
on the implementer’s use of products orservices from a particular supplier [such as
requiring use of a particular manufacturer’scomponents or requiring implementers to use
a particular service provider(s) for compliancecertification];7

Patent rights
This code of practice may be summarized asfollows:

Standards are increasingly the subject of patentrights and the ISO/IEC Directives lay down theprocedures that apply in such cases. HoweverTC/SCs are strongly recommended to orientStandards to making performance requirements,
rather than requiring specific technology, to theextent possible, as this will help to avoid making
use of patented items.

1. The IEC Central Office is not in a position
to give authoritative or comprehensive
information about evidence, validity or scopeof patents or similar rights, but it is desirable
that the fullest available information should bedisclosed. Therefore, any party participatingin the work of IEC should, from the outset,
draw the attention of the IEC Central Office toany known patent or to any known pending
patent application, either their own or of otherorganizations, although the IEC is unable toverify the validity of any such information.

IEC Publications are non-binding; their objective
is to ensure compatibility of technologies andsystems on a worldwide basis. To meet thisobjective, which is in the common interests ofall those participating, it must be ensured thatpublications, their applications, use, etc. areaccessible to everybody.

2. If a Standard is developed and suchinformation as referred to in paragraph 1 has
been disclosed, three different situations may
arise:

It follows, therefore, that a patent embodied fullyor partly in a deliverable must be accessible toeverybody without undue constraints. The sole
objective of the code of practice, in general, is tomeet this requirement. The detailed arrangements
arising from patents (licensing, royalties, etc.)
are left to the parties concerned, as thesearrangements might differ from case to case.

2.1. The patent holder is willing to negotiate
licences free of charge with otherparties on a non-discriminatory basis
on reasonable terms and conditions.
Such negotiations are left to the parties
concerned and are performed outside IEC.

8Any party participating in the work of IEC should,
from the outset, draw IEC’s attention to any
known essential patents (or patent applications).
Such information should be disclosed as earlyas possible during the development of the IEC
publication. This may not be possible when thefirst draft appears, since at this time the text
might still be too vague or subject to subsequent
modifications. Such information should beprovided in good faith and on a best effort basis,but there is no requirement for patent searches.

2.2. The patent holder is willing to negotiate
licences with other parties on a nondiscriminatory basis on reasonable terms
and conditions. Such negotiations areleft to the parties concerned and are
performed outside IEC.
2.3. The patent holder is not willing to comply
with the provisions of either paragraph
2.1 or paragraph 2.2; in such case, theStandard shall not include provisions
depending on the patent.

IEC has a joint patent disclosure process withISO and ITU. Information and guidelines about
the patent policy and relevant forms can be found at
www.iec.ch/patentpolicy

3. Whatever case applies (2.1, 2.2 or 2.3),
the patent holder has to provide a written
statement to be filed at IEC using theappropriate “Patent Statement and Licensing
Declaration” Form. This statement must notinclude additional provisions, conditions, or
any other exclusion clauses in excess of what
is provided for each case in the correspondingboxes of the form.

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Copyright issues
IEC needs to be able to exploit all the Standards it
publishes freely and in particular the IEC NationalCommittees need to be able to make national
adoptions of IEC Standards. For that reason IEC
has copyright on all its published Standards.

You also must respect the copyright of any material
that you contribute to the IEC Standards processfrom sources other than yourself, including fromother organizations, even if you participated in thedevelopment of that material or the work of thatorganization. Before you contribute or distributeany material from another source, for whatever
purpose, you should make sure that you have thatsource’s permission to do so and communicatethat permission to the IEC.

All IEC publications are protected by the publisher’s
copyright and no part of any IEC publication can be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means(graphic, electronic or mechanical includingphotocopying) without the written permissionof the publisher (please see Copyright on IEC
Standards in database format).

By submission of a contribution to the IEC, youare also agreeing to allow the IEC to have a nonexclusive copyright license of that material for use
in an IEC publication. You should make sure thatare able to provide such a license to the IEC before
submitting it.

To grant you reproduction authorization, pleasemention the full reference (publication and editionnumber) and the clause or table number you wish
to use. Send your request to:
Head of Sales & Business Development
IEC Central Office
3 rue de Varembé
PO Box 131
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland
T +41 22 919 02 11
info@iec.ch10

3 rue de Varembé
PO Box 131
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland

T +41 22 919 02 11
info@iec.ch
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IEC Code of conduct:2015-10(en)®

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