Standards Law David Rudin's Unoffical Standards Law Blog

Legal Overlord? I Prefer Benevolent Counsel

James Governor, an analyst with RedMonk, has welcomed the new Legal Overlords to the conversation, for which I thank him.  I absolutely agree with James that lawyers need to be part of the conversation.

There seems to be a perception that standards are developed by groups of engineers working in harmony to reach the optimum technical solutions. The reality is that standards are venues for both cooperation and competition between rival interests.  Making a standard successful in this environment often requires the involvement of individuals from many disciplines.  Technology, business, and legal must all work together to ensure that the right technology is solving the right business problem using the right legal framework.

Lawyers play an important role in this process. In some standards bodies, the only thing that is perhaps more complicated than the technology is the legal framework that governs it.

As several of James's commenters noted, lawyers have certain constraints when speaking publicly that others do not.  As a lawyer, I have legal and ethical responsibilities to my client, Microsoft, and often to the standards bodies I work with.  These obligations will guide my writings on this blog. This isn't a fine line test.  Rather, if there is a topic that can even be remotely construed as interfering with my legal and ethical obligations, I simply won't discuss it.

While smart minds can differ on a conclusion, it's important that the conclusion is founded on appropriate facts, background, and knowledge.  It's my goal that through this blog I can provide a legal perspective and background to the standards conversation.  That leaves us with lots to talk about.