The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has launched the ANSI IBR Portal, an online tool for free, read-only access to voluntary consensus standards that have been incorporated by reference (IBR) into federal laws and regulations.
As coordinator of the US standardization system, ANSI has taken a lead role in informing the public about the reality of free standards, the economics of standards setting, and how altering this infrastructure will undermine US competitiveness. Specifically, the loss of revenue from the sale of standards could negatively impact the business model supporting many standards developing organizations (SDOs), potentially disrupting the larger US and international standardization system, a major driver of innovation and economic growth worldwide.
In response to concerns raised by ANSI members and partner organizations, government officials, and other stakeholders, ANSI began to develop its IBR Portal, with the goal of providing a single solution to this significant issue that also provides SDOs with the flexibility they require to safeguard their ability to develop standards.
IBR standards hosted on the portal are available exclusively as read-only files. In order to protect the intellectual property rights of the groups holding these standards’ copyrights, the portal has built in security features that prevent users from printing, downloading, or transferring any of the posted standards. In addition, screenshots will be disabled and the standards will contain an identifying watermark.
