HL7 to Offer Free License for Standards, Other Properties

Standards development organization Health Level Seven International will make much of its intellectual property available via a free license, an initiative expected to start during the first quarter of 2013.


Standards development organization Health Level Seven International will make much of its intellectual property available via a free license, an initiative expected to start during the first quarter of 2013.

The free property includes all standards, domain analysis models, profiles, implementation guides and some tools. The intellectual property will not be licensed on the open source market, under which other developers may make enhancements. The freely available property means the content must be licensed for use but the license is free. HL7 will continue to control the content, which will continue to be developed and balloted following the organization’s internal rules and standard development requirements under the American National Standards Institute.

The organization is making the intellectual property free to more effectively advance interoperability across the globe,  and better align with other standards organizations that have implemented a similar model, says Charles Jaffe, M.D., CEO of HL7.

Intellectual property and other benefits that will be not free include training and education, certification, work group meeting attendance and tutorials, most publications, voting rights, and service in selected leadership positions, according to HL7.

As a component of the new free licensure policy, will offer expanded membership benefits with “strategic” voting and ballot privileges, expanded training and education, new opportunities for validation and certification, earlier access to intellectual property, and participation in Connectathons. Some of these new offerings will generate new revenue to offset revenue lost from licensing. Details on the new or extended membership benefits will be worked out in coming months, Jaffe says.

More information is available here.

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