http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702612_pf.html
Europe Debates Perfection It Demands of Its Produce
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
July 8, 2008
PARIS -- When is an onion more than an onion, or less? How can consumers choose between a carrot and a mere pretender? That bendy cucumber, those wannabe peaches -- do they have the firmness of character to be on the shelf?
Urgent and vital questions all, especially for lawmakers in the European Union, which has 34 regulations on marketing standards -- from the allegedly essential to the patently absurd -- for fruits and vegetables.
Consider the Class I cucumber, which must be "practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of the length of cucumber)." Translation: A six-inch cucumber cannot bend more than six-tenths of an inch. Following 16 pages of regulations on apples (Class I must be at least 60mm, or 2 1/3 inches, in diameter) come 19 pages of amendments outlining the approved colors for more than 250 kinds.
As for peaches, "to reach a satisfactory degree of ripeness . . . the refractometrix index of the flesh, measured at the middle point of the fruit pulp at the equatorial section must be greater than or equal to 8° Brix."
Had enough? So has the European Commission's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark. She proposes scrapping all but 10 of the regulations, arguing that they are needlessly cumbersome and bureaucratic, and that they lead to people throwing away perfectly edible fruits and vegetables for cosmetic reasons at a time when the world is suffering food shortages and rapid price increases. She hopes representatives from the 27-nation bloc will vote to streamline the regulations at a meeting this month.
"We don't need 34 regulations to decide how round an artichoke should be or how thin a cucumber can be," said Boel's spokesman, Michael Mann, noting that such rules give the E.U. its reputation as an out-of-control bureaucracy. "
A bent cucumber is as good as a straight one," he declared. "Let the shopper decide."
But Boel has a fight on her hands, European officials say, because as many as 19 E.U. countries apparently oppose the simplification scheme. A note to the European Commission from the Spanish and Italian delegations, backed by France and Hungary, argued that "marketing standards play an important role in facilitating and ensuring transparency in market operations while protecting customers at the same time." [DISGUISED PROTECTIONISM IS AT PLAY!!]
The regulations are particularly ridiculed in Britain, where, according to a recent article in the Independent newspaper, "the bent cucumber -- beside its maligned compatriot, the straight banana -- has been wielded by Eurosceptics eager to clobber the European Union." London's Daily Mail gushed that "bendy cucumbers, nobbly strawberries and apples the wrong shade of red are to make a comeback in our supermarkets."
The E.U.'s regulations set three quality standards (Extra, Class I and Class II) that require vendors to carefully label their products. That enables them to charge higher prices for better-looking and, according to Gerard Ioli, owner of an upscale produce stand a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, better-tasting fruits and vegetables.
"It's a choice for the customer," Ioli said. "He has enough information on the label to make a decision about what he wants to buy. It's real competition." [NO. ITS GOVERNMENT FACILITATED & CONTROLLED MARKET-MAKING DEFINED BY A CONFLUENCE OF BUSINESS & NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION (POLITICAL & SOCIAL PRESSURE GROUP) INTERESTS. THE LABELS ARE CONFUSING AND OFTEN MISREPRESENT THE QUALITY & PERFORMANCE OF THE PRODUCTS].
In Ioli's store, as in many French markets, customers are not allowed to touch the produce, so there is no squeezing of avocados, thumping of watermelons or smelling of cantaloupes. [PRECISELY. THE CONSUMER IS NOT PERMITTED TO SEE WHETHER THE THE FRUITS OR VEGETABLES MEET THE STANDARDS OF PERFORMANCE SET FORTH ON THE LABELS. RATHER, CONSUMERS ARE COMPELLED TO TRUST THE 3RD PARTY CERTIFICATION ON THE LABEL.]
Ioli palmed two identical-looking cherry tomatoes -- one classified Extra, the other Class I -- and offered a taste test to prove that all tomatoes are not created equal. Sure enough, the Extra was sweeter, juicier, pulpier and all around superior. "My clients know what they are buying, and they know that if it's labeled 'Extra,' it tastes better and costs more, and they will buy it," he said.
David Parsons, 39, a telecommunications consultant from Boston, has become something of a veggie regulation evangelist in the 10 years he has lived in France. "People will pay for the value of what they see and what they taste," he said while browsing at Ioli's stand. ". . . The French want fruit to be ripened on the vine to get the most vitamins."
But for others, the efforts to regulate produce have simply gone too far.
Let's consider the onion for a moment, and the E.U.'s "Regulation (EEC) No 2213/83 of 28 July 1983 laying down quality standards for onions and witloof chicory." You would think that the 10 pages of standards and the 19 amendments and corrections made in the 25 years since the regulation's enactment would leave little doubt about the required size, shape and color of an onion, and the amount of peeling, bruising, staining, cracking, root tufting and sprouting that is permissible. You would be wrong.
In January 2007, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture issued a report in which it took 29 pages to explain "quality standards for onions," complete with 43 photographs.
Showing posts with label competitive advantage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competitive advantage. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
It is Sometimes Necessary to Go Backward Before You Proceed Forward: Revisiting ITSSD Comments on the US Standards Strategy
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDcommentletter-ANSI5yrreview-USSSREVISED.pdf
...The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is pleased to have the opportunity to submit comments concerning the contents of the draft revision to the United States Standards Strategy (USSS). The USSS appropriately emphasizes the increasingly important role served by international standards in facilitating global commerce. It also accurately reflects the ever-closer relationship that foreign governments have drawn between environment, health and safety (EHS) regulation and industry product, process and service standardization.
The Institute’s comments are divided into two sections. The first section responds to several of the specific initiatives proposed. The second section discusses crosscutting issues which, though not addressed in the USSS, must nevertheless be adequately considered if the USSS is to preserve U.S. international economic interests.
...Conclusion:
The USSS represents a first attempt to articulate a comprehensive plan that addresses a growing number of challenges posed to the global dominance of U.S. standards and to U.S. global economic competitiveness in general. As currently drafted, however, the ITSSD believes that the USSS falls short of achieving this goal, and therefore, should be extensively revised.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to submit comments in response to the draft of the newly revised U.S. Standards Strategy. We hope that our comments will be seriously considered and look forward to receiving your organization’s thoughtful response to them.
[THERE WAS NO SURPRISE WHEN ANSI FAILED TO RESPOND]
...The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is pleased to have the opportunity to submit comments concerning the contents of the draft revision to the United States Standards Strategy (USSS). The USSS appropriately emphasizes the increasingly important role served by international standards in facilitating global commerce. It also accurately reflects the ever-closer relationship that foreign governments have drawn between environment, health and safety (EHS) regulation and industry product, process and service standardization.
The Institute’s comments are divided into two sections. The first section responds to several of the specific initiatives proposed. The second section discusses crosscutting issues which, though not addressed in the USSS, must nevertheless be adequately considered if the USSS is to preserve U.S. international economic interests.
...Conclusion:
The USSS represents a first attempt to articulate a comprehensive plan that addresses a growing number of challenges posed to the global dominance of U.S. standards and to U.S. global economic competitiveness in general. As currently drafted, however, the ITSSD believes that the USSS falls short of achieving this goal, and therefore, should be extensively revised.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to submit comments in response to the draft of the newly revised U.S. Standards Strategy. We hope that our comments will be seriously considered and look forward to receiving your organization’s thoughtful response to them.
[THERE WAS NO SURPRISE WHEN ANSI FAILED TO RESPOND]
Monday, January 28, 2008
EU Injects Political Precautionary Principle and Anti-Patent-based Industry Standards to Secure Global Competitive Advantage
By Lawrence A. Kogan
Back during 2002, a Wall Street Journal columnist prepared a prescient but largely unnoticed article that unfortunately was a negative harbinger of things to come. It described how the European Union had largely become the de facto global legislator and regulator of all kinds of rules concerning the environment, human health and safety that would eventually touch and materially impact practically every industry sector within the United States, and by extension, the world.
“Because of differing histories and attitudes toward government, the EU…with the world’s second-largest economy, regulates more frequently and more rigorously than the U.S., especially when it comes to consumer protection. So, even though the American market is bigger the EU, as the jurisdiction with tougher rules, tends to call the shots for the world’s farmers and manufacturers. EU rules often cause particular friction in the high-tech fields, such as software, electronic commerce and biotechnology” (emphasis added). [1]
EU policy documents then reflected that the products covered by EU environment, health and safety regulations, directives and standards “represent a large proportion of [all] products placed on the market. It is estimated that, as of 2003, the trade of products covered only by the major [agricultural and industrial] sectors regulated…largely exceeds the volume of 1500 billion euro (1.5 trillion euro) [(or approximately $2.25 trillion)] per year”. [2]
In effect, this article implied that America would, over time, lose its sovereign ability to determine its own economic fate and destiny, first outside, and then within its own borders, if it did not act quickly and resolutely enough to slow down and reverse Europe’s regulatory juggernaut.
Now, more than four years later, this has become abundantly clear.
“Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes through gritted teeth and sometimes without knowing, countries around the world are importing the EU’s rules. It is a trend that has sparked concerns among foreign business leaders and that irritates US policymakers. But whether they like or not, rice farmers in India, mobile phone users in Bahrain, makers of cigarette lighters in China, chemical producers in the US, accountants in Japan and software companies in California have all found that their commercial lives are shaped by decisions taken in the EU capital.
...The EU’s emergence as a global rulemaker has been driven by a number of factors, but none more important than the sheer size and regulatory sophistication of the Union’s home market...At the same time, the drive to create a borderless pan-European market for goods, services, capital and labor has triggered a hugely ambitious program of regulatory and legislative convergence among national regimes.
This exercise has left the Union with a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages – a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life...Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health requirements are concerned. Companies that produce their goods to the EU’s standards can therefore assume that their products can be marketed everywhere else as well.
...As...two US-based academics point out in a recent paper that examines the global impact of three recent EU laws on chemicals, electronic waste and hazardous substances, ‘The EU is increasingly replacing the United States as the defacto setter of global product standards and the center of much globally regulatory standard setting is shifting from Washington DC to Brussels’”. [3]
Indeed, Europe had long targeted the U.S. regulatory and free enterprise systems for fundamental restructuring. Its aim has all along been to achieve supranational legal and economic governance over the affairs of global (mainly U.S.) industry through an environment-centric negative paradigm of ‘sustainable development’.[4] There is, in fact, significant documentary evidence showing how the European Community and a number of EU member state governments have, for many years, tried to persuade/compel American-based international businesses and their domestic and foreign suppliers, as well as, U.S. federal, state and local legislators, to adopt similar rules. In so many words, Europe has been engaged in a legalistic and economic war with the United States in an effort to reshape the post-World War II paradigm in the European image.[5] And, it has employed ‘soft’ regulatory rather than ‘hard’ military power to achieve this. The unfortunate reality is that Europe is now well on its way to governing the American way of life, that is, re-colonizing America and the world, unless America and its allies find a way to reverse this trend.
“...Brussels is becoming the world's regulatory capital. The European Union's drive to set standards has many causes—and a protectionist impulse within some governments (eg, France's) may be one. But though the EU is a big market, with almost half a billion consumers, neither size, nor zeal, nor sneaky protectionism explains why it is usurping America's role as a source of global standards. A better answer lies in transatlantic philosophical differences.
The American model turns on cost-benefit analysis, with regulators weighing the effects of new rules on jobs and growth, as well as testing the significance of any risks. Companies enjoy a presumption of innocence for their products: should this prove mistaken, punishment is provided by the market (and a barrage of lawsuits). The European model rests more on the “precautionary principle”, which underpins most environmental and health directives. This calls for pre-emptive action if scientists spot a credible hazard, even before the level of risk can be measured. Such a principle sparks many transatlantic disputes: over genetically modified organisms or climate change, for example.
In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws evaluating the safety of tens of thousands of chemicals, known as REACH, reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless. Some Eurocrats suggest that the philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed unless it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.
...One American official says flatly that the EU is “winning” the regulatory race, adding: “And there is a sense that that is their precise intent.” He cites a speech by the trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, claiming that the export of “our rules and standards around the world” was one source of European power. Noting that EU regulations are often written with the help of European incumbents, the official also claims that precaution can cloak “plain old-fashioned protectionism in disguise” (emphasis added). [6]
Europe's efforts to define global standards has now extended beyond politically motivated environmental and health standards to also include intellectual property standards. This was revealed within a recent IP Watch newsletter article.[7]
Efforts by European Union authorities to take advantage of standardisation as a de facto regulatory tool have not been sufficiently systematic in recent years, according to a study published by the European Commission last week. Yet standards especially in information and communications technology (ICT) are becoming more important, said Patrick Van Eecke, attorney at the Brussels office of DLA Piper UK and co-author of the study. [8]http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/piper/executive_summary.pdf .
The study recommended a dialogue between standardisation organisations and all stakeholders. Also urgently needed is a balance between technical standards and intellectual property rights, according to the study. Concerns that overly rigid IPR protection might become a problem for invention and innovation recently also resulted in other recommendations and decisions at the EU level. A call for changes in the EU patent system was made in a study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) unit and an inquiry into possible anticompetitive practices by the pharmaceutical industry that was initiated by European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes.
A debate on future EU standardisation policy will take place at a conference organised by the European Commission on 12 February in Brussels.Author Van Eecke, speaking with Intellectual Property Watch, pointed to the growing relevance of technical standards that “are more important than legislation.” Companies and citizens either abide by laws passed by governments or not, but to not follow well-established technical standards would mean to be excluded from the market.
“If you are a policymaker, you really would like to make sure that companies and citizens abide by the rules, so instead of drafting a law you could put them into a standard,” he said.
Using privacy as an example, he said, “You can draft one hundred laws that should protect it - and hope that people follow the law. But if you are able to have EU data protection implemented in the technical standards, it might be much more effective.” Van Eecke said that legislators who try to rule via standards would end up drawing the conclusion from American cyberlaw luminary Lawrence Lessig’s theory that code is the (new) law and shifts legislators’ attention to standardisation.
[1] See Brandon Mitchener, “Rules, Regulations of Global Economy Are Increasingly Being Set in Brussels”, WALL ST. J., (4/23/02).
[2] See “Enhancing the Implementation of the New Approach Directives, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament”, COM (2003) 240 final, May 7, 2003, at 3, at: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2003/com2003_0240en01.pdf .
[3] See Tobias Buck, “Standard Bearer”, Financial Times (July 10, 2007) at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e721ba2-2e7d-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html .
[4] For a discussion of this concept, See, e.g., “Issues”, The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, website at: http://www.itssd.org/issues.htm .
[5] See Lawrence A. Kogan, “Exporting Europe’s Protectionism”, The National Interest (Fall 2004) at p. 95, at: http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Kogan%20TNI%2077FINAL.pdf .
[6] See “Brussels Rules OK - How the European Union is Becoming the World's Chief Regulator”, The Economist (Sept. 20, 2007) at: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9832900 .
[7] See Monika Ermert, "Standardisation Policy More Effective Than Legislation On IP?", Intellectual Property Watch (Jan. 25, 2008) at: http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=894 .
[8] DLA Piper and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and T.U. Delft, "EU Study on the Specific Policy Needs for ICT Standardisation" (July 2007) at: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/piper/full_report.pdf .
Back during 2002, a Wall Street Journal columnist prepared a prescient but largely unnoticed article that unfortunately was a negative harbinger of things to come. It described how the European Union had largely become the de facto global legislator and regulator of all kinds of rules concerning the environment, human health and safety that would eventually touch and materially impact practically every industry sector within the United States, and by extension, the world.
“Because of differing histories and attitudes toward government, the EU…with the world’s second-largest economy, regulates more frequently and more rigorously than the U.S., especially when it comes to consumer protection. So, even though the American market is bigger the EU, as the jurisdiction with tougher rules, tends to call the shots for the world’s farmers and manufacturers. EU rules often cause particular friction in the high-tech fields, such as software, electronic commerce and biotechnology” (emphasis added). [1]
EU policy documents then reflected that the products covered by EU environment, health and safety regulations, directives and standards “represent a large proportion of [all] products placed on the market. It is estimated that, as of 2003, the trade of products covered only by the major [agricultural and industrial] sectors regulated…largely exceeds the volume of 1500 billion euro (1.5 trillion euro) [(or approximately $2.25 trillion)] per year”. [2]
In effect, this article implied that America would, over time, lose its sovereign ability to determine its own economic fate and destiny, first outside, and then within its own borders, if it did not act quickly and resolutely enough to slow down and reverse Europe’s regulatory juggernaut.
Now, more than four years later, this has become abundantly clear.
“Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes through gritted teeth and sometimes without knowing, countries around the world are importing the EU’s rules. It is a trend that has sparked concerns among foreign business leaders and that irritates US policymakers. But whether they like or not, rice farmers in India, mobile phone users in Bahrain, makers of cigarette lighters in China, chemical producers in the US, accountants in Japan and software companies in California have all found that their commercial lives are shaped by decisions taken in the EU capital.
...The EU’s emergence as a global rulemaker has been driven by a number of factors, but none more important than the sheer size and regulatory sophistication of the Union’s home market...At the same time, the drive to create a borderless pan-European market for goods, services, capital and labor has triggered a hugely ambitious program of regulatory and legislative convergence among national regimes.
This exercise has left the Union with a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages – a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life...Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health requirements are concerned. Companies that produce their goods to the EU’s standards can therefore assume that their products can be marketed everywhere else as well.
...As...two US-based academics point out in a recent paper that examines the global impact of three recent EU laws on chemicals, electronic waste and hazardous substances, ‘The EU is increasingly replacing the United States as the defacto setter of global product standards and the center of much globally regulatory standard setting is shifting from Washington DC to Brussels’”. [3]
Indeed, Europe had long targeted the U.S. regulatory and free enterprise systems for fundamental restructuring. Its aim has all along been to achieve supranational legal and economic governance over the affairs of global (mainly U.S.) industry through an environment-centric negative paradigm of ‘sustainable development’.[4] There is, in fact, significant documentary evidence showing how the European Community and a number of EU member state governments have, for many years, tried to persuade/compel American-based international businesses and their domestic and foreign suppliers, as well as, U.S. federal, state and local legislators, to adopt similar rules. In so many words, Europe has been engaged in a legalistic and economic war with the United States in an effort to reshape the post-World War II paradigm in the European image.[5] And, it has employed ‘soft’ regulatory rather than ‘hard’ military power to achieve this. The unfortunate reality is that Europe is now well on its way to governing the American way of life, that is, re-colonizing America and the world, unless America and its allies find a way to reverse this trend.
“...Brussels is becoming the world's regulatory capital. The European Union's drive to set standards has many causes—and a protectionist impulse within some governments (eg, France's) may be one. But though the EU is a big market, with almost half a billion consumers, neither size, nor zeal, nor sneaky protectionism explains why it is usurping America's role as a source of global standards. A better answer lies in transatlantic philosophical differences.
The American model turns on cost-benefit analysis, with regulators weighing the effects of new rules on jobs and growth, as well as testing the significance of any risks. Companies enjoy a presumption of innocence for their products: should this prove mistaken, punishment is provided by the market (and a barrage of lawsuits). The European model rests more on the “precautionary principle”, which underpins most environmental and health directives. This calls for pre-emptive action if scientists spot a credible hazard, even before the level of risk can be measured. Such a principle sparks many transatlantic disputes: over genetically modified organisms or climate change, for example.
In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws evaluating the safety of tens of thousands of chemicals, known as REACH, reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless. Some Eurocrats suggest that the philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed unless it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.
...One American official says flatly that the EU is “winning” the regulatory race, adding: “And there is a sense that that is their precise intent.” He cites a speech by the trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, claiming that the export of “our rules and standards around the world” was one source of European power. Noting that EU regulations are often written with the help of European incumbents, the official also claims that precaution can cloak “plain old-fashioned protectionism in disguise” (emphasis added). [6]
Europe's efforts to define global standards has now extended beyond politically motivated environmental and health standards to also include intellectual property standards. This was revealed within a recent IP Watch newsletter article.[7]
Efforts by European Union authorities to take advantage of standardisation as a de facto regulatory tool have not been sufficiently systematic in recent years, according to a study published by the European Commission last week. Yet standards especially in information and communications technology (ICT) are becoming more important, said Patrick Van Eecke, attorney at the Brussels office of DLA Piper UK and co-author of the study. [8]http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/piper/executive_summary.pdf .
The study recommended a dialogue between standardisation organisations and all stakeholders. Also urgently needed is a balance between technical standards and intellectual property rights, according to the study. Concerns that overly rigid IPR protection might become a problem for invention and innovation recently also resulted in other recommendations and decisions at the EU level. A call for changes in the EU patent system was made in a study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) unit and an inquiry into possible anticompetitive practices by the pharmaceutical industry that was initiated by European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes.
A debate on future EU standardisation policy will take place at a conference organised by the European Commission on 12 February in Brussels.Author Van Eecke, speaking with Intellectual Property Watch, pointed to the growing relevance of technical standards that “are more important than legislation.” Companies and citizens either abide by laws passed by governments or not, but to not follow well-established technical standards would mean to be excluded from the market.
“If you are a policymaker, you really would like to make sure that companies and citizens abide by the rules, so instead of drafting a law you could put them into a standard,” he said.
Using privacy as an example, he said, “You can draft one hundred laws that should protect it - and hope that people follow the law. But if you are able to have EU data protection implemented in the technical standards, it might be much more effective.” Van Eecke said that legislators who try to rule via standards would end up drawing the conclusion from American cyberlaw luminary Lawrence Lessig’s theory that code is the (new) law and shifts legislators’ attention to standardisation.
[1] See Brandon Mitchener, “Rules, Regulations of Global Economy Are Increasingly Being Set in Brussels”, WALL ST. J., (4/23/02).
[2] See “Enhancing the Implementation of the New Approach Directives, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament”, COM (2003) 240 final, May 7, 2003, at 3, at: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2003/com2003_0240en01.pdf .
[3] See Tobias Buck, “Standard Bearer”, Financial Times (July 10, 2007) at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e721ba2-2e7d-11dc-821c-0000779fd2ac.html .
[4] For a discussion of this concept, See, e.g., “Issues”, The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, website at: http://www.itssd.org/issues.htm .
[5] See Lawrence A. Kogan, “Exporting Europe’s Protectionism”, The National Interest (Fall 2004) at p. 95, at: http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Kogan%20TNI%2077FINAL.pdf .
[6] See “Brussels Rules OK - How the European Union is Becoming the World's Chief Regulator”, The Economist (Sept. 20, 2007) at: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9832900 .
[7] See Monika Ermert, "Standardisation Policy More Effective Than Legislation On IP?", Intellectual Property Watch (Jan. 25, 2008) at: http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=894 .
[8] DLA Piper and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and T.U. Delft, "EU Study on the Specific Policy Needs for ICT Standardisation" (July 2007) at: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/piper/full_report.pdf .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
