SCOTTSDALE, AZ — October 31, 2006 — VITA, the leading trade association in the critical embedded computing industry, and its Standards Organization (VSO) have received guidance from the US Department of Justice for new VITA patent policy procedures aimed at significantly improving the standards-setting capabilities within the VSO.
VITA requested guidance from the Department’s antitrust authority regarding intentions with respect to a proposed patent policy designed to ensure that participants in the VSO standard-setting process disclose patents that are essential to implement a new standard and declare the most restrictive licensing terms that will be required to license any such patents.
“VITA members will benefit for many years to follow from the changes and improvements being made to the VITA patent policy,” stated Ray Alderman, executive director of VITA. “This has been an effort for reform that is long over due in the world of technology-specification development. We look forward to the impact that these changes will have on future standards efforts.”
VITA has been exploring more effective patent disclosure procedures for the past several years. These explorations led to an inquiry by VITA to the Department of Justice as to how to proceed in developing better procedures.
During the first half of 2006, VITA and its board of directors developed new patent disclosure procedures for use by the VSO. This new patent policy was submitted to the Department of Justice on June 8 for their review.
After numerous meetings to gain clarification, slight changes were made.
The Department of Justice issued their business review letter on October 30, 2006.
The members of VITA are currently reviewing the proposed changes to the VITA patent policy. The changes are expected to be approved at the January VSO meeting held in conjunction with the annual VITA Bus&Board Conference in Long Beach, CA.
Documents may also be downloaded from www.vita.com/disclosure.
About VITA
VITA is an incorporated, non-profit organization of suppliers and users having a common market interest in critical embedded systems. Founded in 1984, VITA believes in and champions open system architectures as opposed to proprietary system architectures. VITA’s activities are international in scope. The functions performed by VITA are technical, promotional and user related and are aimed at increasing the total market size, providing vendors with additional market exposure, and providing users with timely technical information. VITA has ANSI and IEC accreditation for the development of standards for embedded computers, including critical applications and harsh environments, to enable VITA to be the steward of VME technology.
