Stop Using Standards as Trade Barrier, ITI Standards Chair Tells House Science Committee
05.11.2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Donald Deutsch, Chairman of the Information Technology Industry Council’s (ITI) standards committee, told the House Science Committee today that the U.S. government should stimulate free trade by helping to defend against China and Europe’s use of standards as barriers to innovation and market access. ITI is the lead lobbying association for the high-tech industry.
“For the technology industry, a focus on how standards are developed in the U.S. misses the mark,” said Deutsch, who is Vice President for Standards Strategy and Architecture at Oracle. “Our industry designs and builds products for a global market, and we develop globally relevant standards in multiple venues and organizations around the world. Standards are at the foundation of the new global technology economy. The growth and success of the U.S.-led global IT industry is attributable in large part to the development and use of market-led, voluntary standards.”
Unfortunately, Deutsch said, international trends are at odds with the U.S. approach. For example, last year the Chinese government proposed a mandatory standard for Wireless Local Area Network products in China, mandating a specific technology incompatible with international standards and requiring local Chinese production of that technology. U.S. technology companies faced a major dilemma: they could either be forced to collaborate with a select few Chinese competitors, or abandon the Chinese market and its opportunities altogether.
“While we may attribute the Chinese approach to standard setting to their status as an emerging and rapidly developing economy, the EU and other regions of the world are increasingly using a more top-down approach to standardization driven by regulatory interests rather than market-led requirements,” Deutsch said.
On ITI’s behalf, Deutsch recommended that the U.S. government:
- Promote the voluntary, market-driven standards process that has served US industry well;
- Stimulate openness in trade and markets by helping to defend against the use of standards as barriers to innovation and market access;
- Strengthen current Standards Liaison and Attaché programs at the Department of Commerce, including additional staff and resources, to ensure effective coordination and promotion of standards, technical regulatory, and market access activities across all relevant government agencies;
- Redouble advocacy efforts to promote global, market-led, voluntary standards that support innovation and interoperability.
- Work together with industry to develop metrics to provide much-needed standards impact analyses. For example, there would be real policy and commercial use for analyses of the global economic impact of standards.
ABOUT ITI
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) is an elite group of the nation's top high-tech companies and is widely recognized as the tech industry's most effective lobbying organization in Washington. ITI helps member companies achieve their policy objectives through building relationships with Members of Congress, Administration officials, and foreign governments; organizing industry-wide consensus on policy issues; and working to enact tech-friendly government policies.
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