Technical Communications Standards: New Directions in Innovation

Ken Krechmer, Fellow, International Center for Standards Research University of Colorado at Boulder; Communications Standards Review

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 9/16/1999)

The management of high technology communications companies often view public technical standards, as mechanisms that may reduce their market control and profit margins. This viewpoint has considerable historical precedent, but declining validity today. By reviewing the history of technical standards and identifying its relation to communications technology, this paper identifies new ways to use public standards as a means to enhance, rather than reduce, the inventor's advantage in communications systems.