Companies need to be careful not to denigrate the standard or ignore it bycreating their own internal standard as this will hurt its overalleffectiveness for the industry. It may also create a new defacto standard. Without the support of all segments of the industry behind a standard, itsusefulness is limited. The marketing department must also be careful aboutusing the standard as a marketing tool. Advertising claims are one of thefirst thing savvy plaintiff lawyers look for in a products claim.
Advertisements can be very useful in creating implied or express warrantyclaims.
The process of creating standards is very important in defending them and has agreat deal to do with the weight they carry in court. Democratically createdstandards like those within ASTM are ideal. Serious negative comments, votesor concerns about the proposed standard should be addressed as these sameconcerns may come up later in litigation. You also hope the jury will agree withthe majority. Defensecounsel needs to be aware of these problems and move for exclusion of suchstandards if they are actually not conflicting but rather just a differentstandard for a different product or purpose.