Behind the Curve: Addressing the Policy Dependencies of a ‘Bottom Up’ Standards Infrastructure

Andrew Updegrove, Partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP

12/02/2008
(Original Publish Date: 12/2/2008)

The United States government has historically relegated the role of standards development to a private-industry driven process, first, by creating its own "government unique" specifications for procurement purposes, and since 1995, by committing to utilize the standards developed in the private sector. The result is that the U.S. government is today largely dependent upon the standards that the private sector chooses to develop. With the increasing digitization of all things, the Obama administration will find that many standards needed to achieve its goals do not yet exist, and also that government does not have the tools to create them. In this article, I review the forces that led to this state of affairs, assess the resources the government already has available to address new standards needs, and make recommendations on how those resources, and others that can easily be created, could be integrated to provide much-needed standards solutions within reasonable time frames.