The Bottom Line
- Compliance Cost Savings: The long-standing practice of purchasing technical standards (like ISO) required for EU market access is under legal fire. A victory for the European Commission could make these essential documents free to view, lowering costs for businesses.
- Intellectual Property at Risk: This case challenges the core business model of standards organizations and tests the limits of copyright protection. If private documents become “law” by reference, their commercial value and IP status could be fundamentally altered.
- Regulatory Transparency Intensifies: A key transparency advocate has now officially joined the case, strengthening the push for open access and signaling that the EU’s interpretation of “public access to the law” will be robustly defended.
The Details
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), two of the world’s leading standards bodies, have initiated legal action against the European Commission at the EU’s General Court. The dispute centers on the Commission’s decision to grant public, read-only access to certain ISO and IEC standards upon request. This policy shift follows a landmark Court of Justice ruling (Public.Resource.Org, C-588/21 P) which established that harmonised standards that are part of EU law must be accessible. The standards bodies argue that this decision infringes on their copyright and undermines their funding model, which relies on the sale of these documents.
In a significant procedural development, the General Court has now permitted Public.Resource.Org, a US-based non-profit dedicated to making government information more accessible, to intervene in the case in support of the European Commission. Public.Resource.Org was the successful party in the original landmark case, and its involvement was contested by the ISO and the IEC. They argued that the non-profit’s aims were contrary to their copyright interests. However, the court has now formally recognized the organization’s right to participate in the proceedings.
The Court’s reasoning for allowing the intervention is crucial. It determined that Public.Resource.Org has a “direct and existing interest” in the outcome of the case. This is not a mere philosophical interest; the non-profit has its own pending requests and active lawsuits before the General Court seeking access to the very standards at issue in this dispute. The Court concluded that the final judgment in the ISO/IEC case will “necessarily have a direct impact” on Public.Resource.Org’s own legal position, thus establishing its right to be heard and to support the Commission’s defense. This ensures a key advocate for transparency will have a voice in a case with profound implications for businesses across the EU.
Source
Source: General Court of the European Union
