Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI)’s AIS-140 standard

The Automotive Industry Standard 140 (AIS standard) is a collection of regulations produced by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) for all public transit systems in India to develop an Intelligent Transportation System. This required measure was made when the government recognized the critical need to increase efficiency in India’s transportation sector. As a result, the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) was created. Road traffic management and mitigation, public transportation management, and crisis management are all covered by ITS. It is an internationally proven method that allows the transportation authority to obtain control of the country’s entire transportation movement. As a result, the AIS guidelines were developed. Among these are the AIS 140 guidelines. While a typical GPS device can only broadcast a vehicle’s location to one server, an AIS 140 GPS device can send the location to three servers at the same time.

Draft of guidelines: 

https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/Finalized_Draft_AIS_140_regarding_Intelligent_Transportation_Systems_.pdf

Story of Startup Loconav: https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-in/entrepreneurs/more-than-deployment-this-fleet-tech-is-reshaping-modern/386423

Airtels AIS140 system: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/airtel-launches-always-on-iot-solution-for-vehicle-tracking-automakers/94856450?

Dominant standard in poultry- made dominant with action by schools

Emergence of a dominant standard depends on several factors but pressure from users that too by schools was a novelty.
Antibiotics are used to treat disease in farm animals and reduce food-borne pathogens, but some producers of meat and poultry also add antibiotics to feed and water to encourage weight gain. More antibiotics fed to farm animals, however, also contribute to increased occurrence of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use standard is a response to the problem devised by the Pew Charitable Trusts and School Food FOCUS, short for Food Options for Children in the United States, an organization that aims to harness the buying power of school districts to increase the nutritional value of food served in public schools. School Food FOCUS established a consortium of 15 school districts with some 2.3 million children that purchases $36 million in chicken each year, to exercise this buying power in establishing the antibiotic standard.
Tyson Foods, USA’s largest producer of chickens, adopted the Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use standard.

source: Science& enterprise

IEEE amends it Patent (FRAND) Policy endorsing royalty payment on chip and not on the product.

Readers are familiar with court cases concerning royalty payments on essential patents for standards. Licensors like Qualcomm, Ericsson demand royalty of final product (mobile phone) whereas Indian Licensee feel royalty should be on the chip and not on the mobile or other form of finished products incorporating the chip. On February 8th the standard setting organisation IEEE voted to change patent policy and these changes largely relate to the commitment of IEEE members to license patents to users of IEEE standards on terms that are “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” (FRAND). 
The contentious part says:

“Reasonable Rate” shall mean appropriate compensation to the patent holder for the practice of an Essential Patent Claim excluding the value, if any, resulting from the inclusion of that Essential Patent Claim’s technology in the IEEE Standard. In addition, determination of such Reasonable Rates should include, but need not be limited to, the consideration of:

• The value that the functionality of the claimed invention or inventive feature within the Essential Patent Claim contributes to the value of the relevant functionality of the smallest saleable Compliant Implementation that practices the Essential Patent Claim.
• The value that the Essential Patent Claim contributes to the smallest saleable Compliant Implementation that practices that claim, in light of the value contributed by all Essential Patent Claims for the same IEEE Standard practiced in that Compliant Implementation.
• Existing licenses covering use of the Essential Patent Claim, where such licenses were not obtained under the explicit or implicit threat of a Prohibitive Order, and where the circumstances and resulting licenses are otherwise sufficiently comparable to the circumstances of the contemplated license.

The vigorous pubic debate over the IEEE amendments highlights a rift in the standardization world between Patent Centric and Product Centric firms.  The business models that these firms have adopted are different, yet they have co-existed for decades.  Some have predicted that important contributors will leave IEEE as a result of the recent amendments. 

Qualcomm argument; 

Defining a “reasonable” royalty using controversial and unworkable valuation methodologies—including tying a royalty rate to the “smallest saleable component” of a standard-compliant device—all of which are intended to minimize licensing fees for SEPs.

Indian perspective

 IEEE endorsed a calculation based on the value of the chip inside the device, even if many other aspects of the device benefit from or use the contributed technology. This benefits local assembly of mobile phones and most other network based products and can enable Make-In-India.

4G Wireless standard from India

3G has been introduced in India but India is a piggy back rider on this standard platform and till now on all standard platforms. It may change in future if efforts of Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala and his team bear fruit. To make India a leader in telecom technology TeNet created CeWiT (Centre of Excellenace in Wireless Technology) initially funded by governmnet and industry at 2:1 ratio with the objective to conduct mission oriented reserach in 4G wirelss. This body developed IPR for inclusion in 4G standard taking care of Indian requirement like high system capacity. CeWIT has taken up consortium route and established Broadband Wireless Consortium of India (BWCI).

Succession of standards

I have referred to standards in my previous posts of December 6th, August 25th & August 15th 2006. Ken Krechmer in his paper `The Entrepreneur and Standards' which recd 2nd prize at IEC Centenary challenge , gives a historic account of standards and a peep into the future, `adaptable systems'. Adaptable systems occur when autonomous elements of a network can identify, negotiate and select among different capabilities to implement the most desired compatibility.

South Korea's mobile RFID technology

EE Times bring the news that the South Korean proprietary mobile radio-frequency ID technology, known here as Object Identifier (OID), has been adopted as an international standard by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This is another landmark achievement by the farsighted Koreans. They established beach head applications in port/ airport logistics with RFID, resisted the attempts of Americans to impose their (Savi) technology while accepting partner status in defense logistics. For all the efforts , they now are in a commanding position, they get patent fees and other first mover advantage. We are far behind, in passive tag era.

Philips Optical Media and. Technology (OM&T)

Moser Baer joins the battle for next generation DVDs by acquiring a majority stake in OM&T, the Netherlands based R&D arm of Philips. The E10 million OM&T specialises in optical media R&D betting on Blue Ray discs. These are the next generation optical discs, which offer higher storage capacities and will replace the current compact discs (CDs) and DVDs.