Nexus Standards · Legal
Standards IP and Participation Policy · Version 1.0, effective 20 October 2026
Standards IP and Participation Policy
How intellectual property is handled when people take part in developing the Nexus Standards or in Nexus Reports work that applies them: early patent disclosure, a royalty-free commitment, the open boundary, the status of the drafts, competition safeguards and conformance as attestation.
Summary
- Version1.0
- Effective date20 October 2026
- Last updated20 October 2026
- PublisherThe Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI Canada)
- Contactcontact@therisk.global
GCRI Canada · Secretariat of the Nexus Standards
Version 1.0, effective 20 October 2026.
| Record | Value |
|---|---|
| Document | Standards IP and Participation Policy |
| Version | 1.0 |
| Effective date | 20 October 2026 |
| Last updated | 20 October 2026 |
| Publisher | The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI Canada) |
| Contact | contact@therisk.global |
Scope.
- 1.1 This Policy applies to everyone who takes part in developing a Nexus Standard: contributors, working group participants, reviewers, editors and the organisations they represent (Participants). On Nexus Reports it applies to contributions that propose or apply a standard.
- 1.2 It complements the Contribution Terms, which govern copyright and the confirmation of rights for every contribution.
Secretariat and publisher.
- 2.1 GCRI Canada is the Secretariat and publisher of record of the Nexus Standards and receives every disclosure and notice under this Policy.
Status of the Nexus Standards.
- 3.1 The Nexus Standards are preparatory working drafts (2026). They are published for comment, testing and voluntary use, and they may change.
- 3.2 A Nexus Standard names external standards by identifier, body and link. It does not reproduce their text or stand in for them; each external standard stays with its steward and under its own licence.
- 3.3 National adoption, adaptation or reference of a Nexus Standard is a decision of the competent national institution under its own law.
Patent disclosure.
- 4.1 A Participant discloses, as early as reasonably possible and in any case before the public last call of a draft, any patent or patent application it knows of, held by it or by others, that may contain claims necessarily infringed by implementing the draft.
- 4.2 A disclosure names the draft, the patent or application and its holder, and the part of the draft concerned. It is sent to contact@therisk.global and is published with the draft. No Participant is required to search patent records.
Licensing commitment.
- 5.1 A Participant commits to license, on a royalty-free basis and on reasonable terms, any claims it holds that are necessarily infringed by implementing what a Nexus Standard requires. The commitment covers implementation of the standard only, and the detailed terms are those of the Contribution Terms.
- 5.2 During the last call of a draft, a Participant may exclude a named patent or application from its commitment by written notice. An exclusion is published with the draft, and the editors consider whether to change the draft.
The open boundary.
- 6.1 The text, registries, schemas and data of the Nexus Standards are open (CC BY 4.0), and reference code is open (Apache-2.0), from the date each item is publicly released. The standards can be implemented without any proprietary software or service.
- 6.2 A tool, platform or service that implements a Nexus Standard is not part of the standard, and its terms are its own.
Conformance is attestation, not certification.
- 7.1 Conformance with a Nexus Standard is declared by the implementer in an implementation conformance statement with its evidence. A statement is listed as submitted; the programme does not verify or approve it, and it never becomes a certification.
- 7.2 An implementation may be described as conformant on the strength of its own statement only, never as approved or vouched for by the programme.
Competition safeguards.
- 8.1 Participants do not discuss or agree prices, costs, wages, bids, markets, customers, output or any other competitively sensitive matter, and do not exchange such information. This applies equally to meetings of the industry councils of Global Risk Alliance and to every working group, call and event of the programme.
- 8.2 Every meeting has a written agenda circulated in advance and minutes that record what was discussed. A participant who sees a discussion turn to a competitively sensitive matter objects, has the objection minuted and, if the discussion continues, leaves.
- 8.3 Participation is open on non-discriminatory terms, decisions are recorded with their reasons and recorded dissent, and no standard may be used to exclude a competitor or a technology without technical justification.
Law and contact.
- 9.1 This Policy are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules that would apply another law.
- 9.2 Disclosures, exclusion notices and questions go to contact@therisk.global.
Questions and answers.
Does contributing oblige me to license all my patents?
Contribute to Nexus Reports from this page.
Nexus Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
- GatewayGW-STDSend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Nexus Reports community. Curators review it there; the DOI stays yours.
- Nexus ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
Around the Nexus Standards.
Patent disclosures and questions
Disclosures, exclusion notices and questions about this Policy may be sent to the Secretariat, GCRI Canada, at contact@therisk.global.
Status and use. The Nexus Standards are proposed standards developed through an open process under NS-13 and published for voluntary use; they do not constitute certification, accreditation or regulatory approval, and adoption remains a decision of the Global Standards Council and, in each country, of its National Standards Council. A UNI (Unique Nexus Identifier) identifies an artifact; it does not certify it. Names of standards bodies and their standards belong to their stewards and are used only to identify the documents; no text of an external standard is reproduced here. Nexus Standards is not affiliated with, endorsed by or certified by any standards body named here.
Licences: CC BY 4.0 for standards text, registries, schemas and data; Apache-2.0 for reference code. External standards are cited by name, number and link under their own licences. Third-party data, libraries and fonts keep their own licences: see Third-party notices.