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Adam Smith identified that the economic power of trade (exchange) gives occasion to the division of labor, and the division of labor provides the greatest improvement in productivity (Smith 1937). Standards for measurement, manufacturing, currency, and communications provide the definitions used to enable an exchange. Using these definitions the division of labor is expanded, resulting in increased productivity and economic growth. Technical standards provide the basis from which change, development and economic transformation occur.
The paradigm shift introduced by a new class of technology requires new ways to balance two conflicting objectives: one, incentives for invention and innovation enabling private gain, and two, public good provided by the diffusion of new products, services and processes enabling lower prices, greater usage and new capabilities (Shurmer 1995). Each stratum of standards may be identified in economic terms by a change in the self-reinforcing effects (Arthur 1988). The expanding self-reinforcing effects in turn cause a change in the balance between private gain and public good. As will be shown, successful government institutions adapt their procedures to better achieve the desired public good.
These examples suggest there was little room for the entrepreneur to innovate in the creation of unit standards. While unit standards gain in value to all society when more people use the same unit standard, the use of unit standards minimizes estimating and tends to reduce the clever, but perhaps not very honest, seller's advantage. Because the use of unit standards offers long term advantage to society but little short term advantage to early merchant entrepreneurs, unit standards may be seen to have small self-reinforcing effects. Governments promote common unit standards for multiple reasons, including equitable taxation. Of course, government-controlled unit standards minimize innovation of alternative unit standards. Fortunately, wide use of common standards provides the greatest value to society; innovations in units standards usually offer little more than convenience.
Unit standards were a significant factor in the development of early civilization. Taxation provides a more reliable form of government income than tribute. Unit standards provided the weights and measures used for taxation (by barter) and therefore assisted in the rise of the first great city states of Babylon and Egypt (Skinner 1958). Later, economic reference standards (currency)[4] enabled monetary systems, and expanded trade. Reference standards such as currency are virtual constructs and require the acceptance by society for their broad use. Such acceptance often is sponsored by a government.
Similarity specifications emerged during the second great wave of civilization, the industrial revolution, to codify the results of repetitive processes designed to minimize production costs and increase learning effects (Arthur 1988). Initially, similarity standards were not seen as desirable. Different railroad engineers identified different requirements and therefore designed different train rail spacings. And the railroad owners, the entrepreneurs of the emerging 19th century industrial age, preferred to support only what they owned. Together these engineers and entrepreneurs created railroad systems of many different gauges (Puffert 1991).
By the 19th century, the growing use of mechanized processes instigated the powerful concept of interchangeability. The economic value of interchangeable parts was first identified for the rapid repair of guns after a battle.[5] In this case, interchangeability was possible only among the guns from one manufacturer. Interchangeability was privately controlled and competition was limited. Examples of private products with interchangeable parts that precluded competition: guns, train track gauges, fire hydrant flanges, rotating gear design, custom nuts and bolts.
Entrepreneurs were not initially motivated to develop or follow similarity standards, because the self-reinforcing effects were seen to be small. Proprietary products from a single manufacturer with interchangeable parts were a form of barrier to competition, while the use of interchangeable parts added value to the product and served to increase the manufacturer's profits. However, during this same period, society began to realize the importance of having all train tracks or bolt and nut threads[6] or fire hydrant flanges (Hemenway 1975) interchangeable. Sometimes the government stepped in to require similarity standards, as example, for train track gauges in England and America (Puffert 1991). But a new means of credit creation based upon patents on inventions also developed to encourage more common usage of similar equipment from different manufacturers. Patents emerged at the beginning of the industrial revolution[7] to allow proprietary products (private gain) to be converted to common specifications and possibly similarity standards. As the markets for manufactured products grew, so also did the understanding of the self-reinforcing effects related to similar products and common agreements which evolved to become similarity standards. Similarity standards offer advantages to the manufacturer in production efficiencies, to the distribution chain in handling and promotion, and to the end user in understanding, operation and maintenance. Entrepreneurs with an economic assist from patents and a growing knowledge of the advantages of similarity standards have, over the past 150 years, increasingly supported their use (Business Week 1995).
Now even products that have little need for interchangeability have similarity requirements (public and private) for safety, usage, environment, shipping, etc. Examples include: the standards for emergency exit signs, motor vehicle speed limits, the definition and marking of specific plastics for recycling, or the transportation of hazardous goods. As these examples suggest, similarity standards, when they represent the minimum admissible attributes relating to public safety and use, are often referenced in government regulations. But the form of government involvement in similarity standards is quite different than for unit standards due to the positive self-reinforcing effects associated with similarity standards. Once entrepreneurs realize the production and marketing advantages of similarity standards, less government promotion of such standards is required.
The concept of technical compatibility specifications emerged in the late 19th century, to support flowing services providing water, sewage removal, gas, oil, electricity, telephone and telegraph engendered by higher density human habitation. Like early railroads, each early utility system for water and sewage used different arrangements for pipe and coupling. Standardized pipe sizes and coupling emerged as larger utility companies acquired smaller ones (Bruce 1958). Later more complex fluid transportation systems for gas and oil require common definition of the physical properties to be transported, e.g., crude oil grades. Electrical and communications utility systems also developed common specifications as larger companies acquired smaller. Public communications systems require more complex definitions of each interface. Such definitions initially start out as trade practices, later become written private specifications, and only with the advent of deregulation of public communications utilities become compatibility standards. Deregulation of public communications utilities does not occur without public standards for compatibility.
Data communications, which was not initially perceived as a public service, appears to be where the first public compatibility standards evolved.[8] Data communications was developed and first deployed for use in large organizations. The Internet, fundamentally a data communications network, only recently was identified as an important public service. IBM pioneered large data communications systems and developed many proprietary compatibility specifications (e.g., token ring local area networks, LANs), but these originally technically superior, private specifications have been obsoleted by the market's desire for public data communications compatibility (e.g., Ethernet LANs). The success of Ethernet LANs and the failure of the IBM token ring LAN may be partially explained by the perceived value of public compatibility standards rather than proprietary compatibility specifications.
Once public interfaces to desirable distributed systems are available, entrepreneurs are quick to take up the challenge, and public compatibility standards become essential parts of day-to-day life, e.g., AC plugs and outlets, Edison light bulb sockets, telephone jacks, electronic mail, the World-Wide-Web (WWW). The amazing and ever-changing array of devices and software that attach to these compatible interfaces gives evidence of the powerful self-reinforcing effects that may be associated with public compatibility standards.
Systems and equipment that utilize compatibility standards evidence greater self-reinforcing effects than equipment based on similarity standards. This occurs due to the addition of coordination effects[9] to the self-reinforcing effects already associated with similarity standards. The greater self-reinforcing effects in turn motivate entrepreneurs to be the first to bring to market new systems and equipment that embody their own compatibility specifications. One example is the rapid rise of the Netscape browser for access to the World-Wide-Web and the following rapid rise of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. In these examples, compatibility with the desired service (WWW) is primary and the software seen to best provide compatibility is rapidly accepted due to the sum of the self-reinforcing effects.
Cellular communications systems offer a different example of self-reinforcement. In the US, there is no single technology supported for third generation cellular communications. Different US entrepreneurs have created different cellular technologies, because the need for common, nation-wide cellular communications is just developing in the US. Yet European companies with an earlier need for common, multi-country cellular communications, have created a European position supporting GSM cellular communications. In public communications markets, the European tradition of respect for standardization appears more efficient (less variation needs to be supported) and more successful than the US desire for market determination.[10] However, in private interface markets (where at least one end of the compatible interface is privately controlled), the US process of market determination may be more successful, e.g., Microsoft personal computer operating systems or the earlier success of IBM data communications systems.
These examples also illuminate the effect of compatible interfaces on "lock-in" (Arthur 1988). Lock-in occurs when the self reinforcing effects increase demand for a specific product or service and make it difficult for innovative alternatives to be considered. Lock-in is very desirable for the manufacturer but is at best a mixed blessing for the public. Lock-in may be achieved by control of a necessary technical element, by political or market means. There are only two current ways to achieve lock-in of a technical nature. Patents may cause technical lock-in, which is an acceptable result of a successful patent. And technical lock-in may be achieved using a proprietary compatible interface, which may be less desirable to society, as the examples from Microsoft or IBM might suggest.
If the equipment/software providing an interface is programmable and user changeable, for example Internet browsers or personal computer electronic mail programs, then multiple solutions may be supported, each contending in its market for some advantage which would increase demand and possibly achieve lock-in. User changeability or adaptability via a converter are necessary conditions to avoid lock-in via compatible interfaces, but not sufficient. A means or mechanism to identify and select among the alternative solutions is also required to prevent lock-in.
The emerging adaptive communications period (Table 1) is exemplified by the Internet and enabled by programmable computers for all the functions that support communications. High speed programmable computers provide the means to implement basic communications yet adapt to utilize new communications programs and allow proprietary communications technology. Once communications functions are programmable and changeable, they can be adapted, in real-time, to support any new communications invention (within the constraints of the resources available) and still allow backward compatible operation. What is necessary is a simple protocol that shuttles back and forth between the communicating ends to negotiate which specific protocol(s), data sets and options will be used for compatible operation. Such a "protocol of protocols" is termed an etiquette.
Current examples of etiquette standards used to negotiate with remote systems include ITU V.8 used by telephone modems to negotiate remote compatible operation with the far-end modem. This is how older and newer telephone modems (e.g., V.34 and V.90) find a common way to communicate. In Group 3 facsimile, the negotiating protocol ITU T.30 is an etiquette that has also been very successfully extended for over thirty years. In the IETF, standards track RFC 2543, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is used to negotiate multimedia communications. The recently completed ITU Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) standards use an etiquette (G.994.1) to support forward and backward compatibility. Etiquettes may also be applied to the local interfaces between software processes in a single system to support local compatibility. It also appears likely that some form of mechanism, possibly an etiquette, will be standardized to negotiate among the multiple different third generation cellular technologies that are proposed for international standardization.
Etiquettes create new ways to implement, control, and add value to communications systems. The negotiation defined by an etiquette standard can support all types of compatibility, and can also transport proprietary enhancements using a standardized way of passing proprietary information. In the etiquette, a character string (or similar) is used to identify proprietary ownership. In Group 3 facsimile, the standardized way to support proprietary enhancements is called ITU T.30 Non-Standard Facilities (NSF). Each NSF, transmitted between facsimile machines, is identified by a proprietary character sequence. Following this, any information may be exchanged because the communicating ends have uniquely identified each other. In SIP, a reverse domain name is used to provide the unique identity. Each of these unique identifiers is "owned" by the organization that implements it and there is legal precedent to suggest that such ownership would be legally recognized. These information sequences become the identification that communicating systems use to verify design ownership - a "branded ID."[11] By using a branded ID, the communications equipment manufacturer maintains legal control over any proprietary features offered. The use of a branded ID to control proprietary enhancements may represent a new form of intellectual property that operates over any digital communications system.
Over time, desirable proprietary enhancements may become standard and may be added to the standardized parameter sets. Ricoh, a Japanese facsimile machine manufacturer, offered proprietary higher speed G3 facsimile to its corporate customers using the NSF. Then, years later, higher speed operation similar to what Ricoh pioneered was included in the G3 facsimile etiquette standard. This ability to offer desirable proprietary features while maintaining compatibility with the G3 facsimile standard contributed to Ricoh's position as the largest corporate facsimile supplier for many years.
Many existing programmable communications systems already support multiple communications protocols with a mechanism in the protocols to discover which communications protocol is being received. However, such systems cannot achieve complete forward compatibility. For complete forward compatibility, the discovery function must be independent of the protocol. This is required to guarantee that changes to the protocol do not impact the etiquette and the reverse. Keeping revisions fully compatible in very complex software/hardware systems is currently impossible without using the independent discovery concept of an etiquette, because it is not possible to identify or test all the ramifications of a change. Thus changes to add features or fix "bugs" can result in more "bugs." Since etiquettes are independent of the protocols, they can negotiate among different communications protocols (including different revisions) to utilize the version that "works" correctly.
Etiquette standards are not limited to allowing private technical inventions such as higher data rates or lower error rates. Etiquettes using a branded ID can also increase profits by offering specific capabilities to particular market segments. For example, the banking industry may negotiate better encryption, the radiologist market may negotiate higher resolution, the wireless market may negotiate better error control. Market segmentation via the etiquette can also be applied to the distribution channel, allowing individual equipment dealers and distributors to automatically poll their specific customers' equipment for usage billing (e.g., copier market), problem analysis, and maintenance support (automatic ordering of replacement parts). In these automatic polling cases, the etiquette may include a branded ID as well as a distributor and customer ID added by the machine dealer to uniquely identify their customers.
The concept of etiquette standards is just emerging. Exactly how etiquette standards will balance the desire for public good with the need to promote private gain is yet to be determined. But the desirability of future compatible operation and the private economic opportunities made possible by etiquette standards are not likely to go unnoticed. Once the concept of etiquettes is understood technically, economically and politically, the adaptivity effects of etiquette standards may add to the self-reinforcing effects.
Using the example above, the "voice digitizer downloading web site" could provide the desired voice digitizer software for purchase charged to a credit card. Or the "voice digitizer conversion web site" could perform the actual conversion process for a usage or time based fee charged to a credit card. Etiquette standards may make the next evolution of the Internet, where the network provides the processing and application services, more manageable and profitable.
Patents augment the profit motive by supporting proprietary products (private gain) yet motivating the inventor to share the invention with others, for greater public good. Competition between the inventor and the licensees of the invention forces increased efficiencies in manufacturing and distribution, thereby reducing costs and prices (public good). Of course, such competition is only possible when the fees paid by the licensees are reasonable. If the cost of licensing is too great, it prevents the licensee's products from being competitive with similar products from the inventor's company. Recognizing this effect, most standards development organizations now require identified patent holders to agree that patents related to a standard under development will be licensed on "reasonable, fair and non-discriminatory terms."
History shows that public standards (particularly unit and similarity standards) have impeded private invention and innovation (Farrell 1985). Conversely, private invention and innovation have impeded public standards. Differing railroad track gauges prior to government intervention is one example. During the 20th century, companies which sponsor and acquire inventions have recognized the advantages of common similarity standards for increasing efficiency and expanding markets. Such improvements are now widely understood to be more important to company profits than proprietary implementations. However, common compatibility standards are not yet viewed in such an enlightened manner. Many companies wish to create their own private compatibility specifications (which they often term "standards"), not be bound to public compatibility standards. They hope that their market success will lead to market dominance and they will control the compatibility specifications chosen by the market, using their patents or market position. Intel and Microsoft, and IBM before them, offer examples of the immense value of private compatibility specifications when the market considers them compatibility "standards."
Public utilities are those industries which are required to render service at reasonable and nondiscriminatory prices to all who apply for it, i.e., they are necessary for the public good. The private ownership of utility systems has not always been seen to be in the public's best interest as they were considered "natural monopolies."[13] Natural monopolies have five defining characteristics:
1. Provide a necessary product or service. 2. Has a dominant position over similar products or services. 3. Controls the supply of the product or service. 4. The product or service may be increased with little relationship to cost. 5. Unique and specific arrangements[14] are necessary to use the product or service.
The problem of how to have these desirable systems yet avoid the gouging possible when such systems are privately owned gave rise to the concept of utilities: owned, controlled or regulated by a government.
Of course, public utilities also limit the inventor's or innovator's opportunity for private gain. The innovator has no means to compete with a public utility, so the avenue with the most potential for private gain, commercial enterprise, is thwarted. Even the gain from selling an invention to a public utility is very limited since with only one customer there is little room for negotiation. This loss of the innovator's advantage appears to be one reason for the reduced pace of innovation in public telephone and telegraph companies (PT&Ts).
In the past, communications utilities[15] in the form of PT&Ts have dominated communications technology invention and treated their own inventions as public property (Bauer 1934). However PT&Ts, possibly due to the lack of competition, have implemented slowly-evolving communication systems that lagged behind technology's capabilities and society's needs. Because of this, PT&Ts are being privatized in many countries. The privatization of PT&Ts appears to bring with it the advantage of competition: innovation. However, the new private owners of these public communications systems consider the existing patents their own property to be used for their private gain. The passage of large patent portfolios from public communications utilities (even privately owned) to private companies (without public regulation) neglects the effect of patented communications technology included in existing compatibility standards.
There are significant differences between patents controlling similarity and patents controlling compatibility. Advances in technology may quickly reduce or bypass the effect of patents controlling similarity. Patents controlling a desired standard for public compatibility cannot be bypassed so easily. A patent on a superior vacuum tube radio design (similarity) is obsoleted by transistor radios; and the replacement of each radio is an individual decision. However a patent controlling standardized AM radio broadcast transmission (compatibility) is valuable until the AM radio broadcast is no longer desired or the patent expires; and the replacement of all AM broadcasting is far from an individual decision.
Patented communications standards may be seen as creating a natural monopoly if the public communications system is considered necessary, is privately owned and controlled, and the patented technology is required for compatibility. Patents are designed to confer a unique advantage on the private inventor for a period of time. Patents were not intended to support natural monopolies such as utility systems. However, in the fixed information period (Table 1), patents necessary for compatibility with privately owned, but publicly used systems may reinforce the unique arrangement aspect of a natural monopoly. Patents used in public communications standards then become a license for the patent holder to extract revenue from potential competitors who must use the patented technology, thereby weakening competition. This reduction in competition has a likelihood of reducing the public good, while increasing the private gain.
Where patented technology of the utility company is already included in public compatibility standards, the future value of the patented technology is assured. Currently when such a patent portfolio is transferred to a private company, the private company receives a windfall (increased private gain from the future patent royalties). In effect, it is a transfer of value previously in the public domain to private enterprise. PT&Ts world-wide are being privatized. The future value of their patent portfolios applicable to existing compatibility standards is a current issue which should be considered in the transfer of PT&Ts from public to private enterprise.
Commercial organizations always desire new ways to profit from the innovator's advantage. The commercial use of etiquettes appears to further such advantage. Etiquettes, by transporting proprietary information, support a new means to achieve monetary gain based on invention or innovation, while supporting the compatibility so necessary for public communications. The branded ID in effect becomes a new form of intellectual property, offering new ways to support private invention and yet accommodate public good in communicating systems. And patents remain a means for the inventor to achieve monetary gain based directly on the invention.
The concept of etiquette standards is very new and not widely understood. Government intervention may be required to initiate the acceptance of etiquette standards as occurred with unit, similarity and compatibility standards before. However the forms of government intervention implemented previously, including patents and regulated utilities, introduced innovative forms of credit creation. Possibly requiring market dominant organizations to implement etiquette standards, which support new forms of credit creation, could be of greater public good than, as example, a breakup of Microsoft or large PT&Ts.
The feedback relationship between public good and public standards or private gain and private designs should not be considered fixed. In limited cases private gain is best served by public standards, e.g., when a patent provides private control of a public standard. And public good is often initially best served by a private design, e.g., when a new innovation is introduced. Later, if the innovation achieves market dominance, a public standard becomes important for public good.
The development sphere (public and private technical development) may be thought of as a continuum, including single company private designs (specifications) at one extreme, world-wide public standards at another, and every imaginable government development, consortium and forum in between. Commercial organizations will attempt the standardization procedure, if any, that appears to offer the least risk and greatest rewards (in that order) as standardization is not currently considered an intrinsic part of the development process. Wiser governments will monitor the markets response and, when necessary, attempt to maximize public good while maintaining ample private incentive. The long term trend seems clear, government intervention in this model is needed less and less as each paradigm shift increases the opportunities for entrepreneurs to achieve private gain with less compromise of the public good.
Understanding the relationship of standards to technology and economics leads to a deeper knowledge of both. Standards, a vast similitude, have emerged as a multi-disciplinary field of considerable excitement. "This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them" (Whitman).
Barnes, Irston R., The Economics of Public Utility Regulation, F. S. Crofts, New York, 1947, pages 1, 47.
Bauer, J., and N. Gold, Public Utility Valuation for Purposes of Rate Control, Macmillan Company, 1934, page 283.
Brooks, Stewart M., Going Metric, A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc., Cranbury, NJ, 1976, page 21.
Bruce, F. E., Water Supply, A History of Technology, Vol V, The Late Nineteenth Century (1850- 1900), Oxford University Press, 1958.
Business Week Competing through Standardization, October 16, 1995.
David, Paul A., Some new standards for the economics of standardization in the information age, Economic Policy and Technology Performance, P. Dasgupta and P. Stoneman editors, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Egyedi, Tineke, Shaping Standardization, Thesis, Delft Technical University, 1996.
Ely, Richard, The Future of Corporations, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July, 1887
Farrell J., and G. Saloner, Standardization, Compatibility, and Innovation, Rand Journal of Economics, Vol. 16 No. 1, Spring, 1985.
Fleck, Sir Alexander, Technology and Its Social Consequences, A History of Technology, Volume V, The Late Nineteenth Century (1850- 1900), Oxford University Press, New York and London, 1958, page 818.
Gilbert, K.R., Machine-Tools, A History of Technology, Volume IV, The Industrial Revolution (1750- 1850), Oxford University Press, New York and London, 1958.
Hemenway, D., Industrywide Voluntary Product Standards, Ballinger Publishing Co., 1975.
History of Technology and Invention, Vol. III, Crown Publishers, 1968.
Klein, H. Arthur, The World of Measurement, Simon and Schuster, 1974.
Kontratieff, Nikolai, translation by W. F. Stolper, Review of Economic Statistics, November 1935.
Puffert, Douglas, The economics of spatial network externalities and the dynamics of railway standardization, Stanford University Thesis, 1991.
Schumpeter, Joseph A., Business Cycles, abridged edition, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1964.
Schumpeter, Joseph A., History of Economic Analysis, Oxford University Press, 1954.
Shurmer, Mark, and Gary Lea, Telecommunications Standardization and Intellectual Property Rights: A Fundamental Dilemma?, Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure, MIT Press, 1995.
Skinner, F. G., The Origins of Standardization, History of Technology, Vol. I, From Early Times to Fall of Ancient Empires, Oxford Press, 1958.
Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, fifth edition, Chapters II and III, Random House, 1937.
Verman, Lal C., Standardization in India - Ancient and Modern. Shri Ram Institute for Industrial Research, 1965.
Whitman, Walt, On the Beach at Night Alone, Leaves of Grass, Books, Inc., New York (no date).
[2] The term standard in this paper is used to describe documents developed, distributed and maintained in an open manner, as distinct from specifications which are proprietary.Return to text
[3] The innovations enhancing human communications are shown. Other technical innovations also fit into this taxonomy.Return to text
[4] The code of Hammurabi (circa 1700 BCE) makes frequent reference to minas, shekels and talents which were used as units of both weight and monetary exchange (Brooks 1976).Return to text
[5] The industrial revolution has many fathers. E. Whitney is generally credited with introducing the "American system" of production with interchangeable parts in 1798 (Fleck 1958). In fact, Thomas Jefferson paid a visit to the French gunsmith Le Blanc in 1785 and reported on similar methods (Gilbert 1958, p. 437).Return to text
[6] In 1841 Sir Joseph Whitworth proposed a standard for screw threads in a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers in England . He also was a major proponent of the early technology of accurate measurement which is required to verify conformance to standards or specifications (Gilbert 1958, p. 433).Return to text
[7] Patents are authorized in the US Constitution Art. 1 Sec.8. The first US patent bill was enacted in 1790. The US Patent Office was created in 1836.Return to text
[8] An early public digital interface was the RS-232 serial interface first standardized by the Electronic Industries Association, May, 1960.Return to text
[9] Communications services evidence coordinating effects: one type of self-reinforcing effect based on the user advantages gained when more users have the same service. Also termed "network externalities" (Arthur 1988). Return to text
[10] Nokia of Finland is now a larger provider of cellular telephones than Motorola, the largest US cellular telephone provider.Return to text
[11] Identifing information sequences in use today include brands, trademarks, copyright statements, Internet domain names and ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) requirements. Using a branded ID to verify design ownership may require legal advice.Return to text
[12] By 1933, public utilities (including transportation) represented 40% of the total assets, and the largest single group, of US corporations with assets over $50 million (Barnes 1947). Return to text
[13] Richard Ely (Ely 1887) coined the phrase natural monopoly. He refers to the earlier work of T.H. Farrer, The State in its Relation to Trade, 1883, for a description of the five characteristics of natural monopolies.Return to text
[14] The unique and specific arrangements are the forerunners of compatibility specifications.Return to text
[15] This paper focuses on "fluid" utility systems, as distinct from transportation or other industries that have been regulated, because they evidence more significant "unique and specific arrangements" (compatibility standards and specifications).Return to text
This page was last updated July 31, 2000.
Figure 1. Standards Development and Market Model
Conclusions
Schumpeter's waves of innovation flow from new industries built upon new technologies. As Schumpeter explained, new credit creation occurs to support the development of the new industry. Adding the concepts of economic self-reinforcement from W. Brian Arthur and the taxonomy of standards from P. David, technical standards can be seen as an intrinsic part of the linkage between technology, credit creation and innovation. By supporting the balance of private gain with public good, each stratum of technical standards brings with it a new form of credit creation that provides new funds for the development of the emerging technologies. In the current era, etiquette standards support a new credit creation, concept ownership, by transporting branded IDs with proprietary enhancements. Etiquettes when implemented by communications product and service developers and their distribution partners, allow for future change, development and transformation while minimizing disruptions caused by incompatibility. References
Footnotes
[1] Technical standards are a discipline related to both technology and economics. A companion paper, "The Fundamental Nature of Standards, Technical Perspective," was published in the June, 2000 issue of IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 38, No. 6, p. 70.Return to text
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