ETRI Leads Global ICT thru Int'l Standardization
ETRI achieved 114 international standard patents during 2015, recording over 600 patents thus far in its possession. Considering its major standardization achievements through the R&D and standardization project supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, it can be emphasized that ETRI is engaged in vigorous activities in the global arena of standardization.
Within around 30 international standardization organizations such as ITU(International Telecommunication Union), IEEE(Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers), and ISO(International Organization for Standardization), ETRI took a total of 187 chairmanship as well as two new vice-chair at the level of study group level during 2015. ETRI produced 29 international standards, 42 contributions containing standard patents and submitted and presented a total of 1,141 contributions in relation to ICT international standards in the same year.
In particular, ETRI developed aggressive standardization activities in major areas including 5G, IoT(Internet of Things), SDN(Software-Defined Networking), cloud, big data, and smart media. Through these efforts, ETRI achieved significant standardization outcomes by reflecting market demand and strategically responding to standardization at the national level.
In October 2014 at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference held in Busan, the Korean government adopted a new agenda for Connect 2020 and IoT promotion. Based on this effort, Korea took the initiative in creating the 5G focus group(FG IMT-2020) within the ITU-T SG13(future network) in April 2015. In June, Korea also achieved a remarkable outcome by helping create the SG20(IoT and smart city) during the standardization period, for the first time in the 60-year history of the ITU-T standardization. Through the Protocol Engineering Center, which takes exclusive charge of standardization business, ETRI is developing national standardization strategies and supported related policymaking.
ETRI Facilitates Development of Health Care IoT
ETRI announced its leading efforts for international specifications on IoT healthcare products, encompassing wearable devices such as smart watches as well as IoT fitness and sports devices.
ETRI is developing two draft specifications for healthcare resources and devices, respectively, at OCF(Open Connectivity Foundation), a standards developing organization(SDO) specialized in de-facto IoT standards. ETRI also announced that it had implemented a prototype using IoTivity source codes developed based on both healthcare specifications. IoTivity is an open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation and sponsored by OCF. Once the specifications are complete, the open-source code reflecting the standards will be available publicly to anybody who is willing to develop various wearable, fitness, and IoT devices. ETRI will in turn rapidly develop IoT applications in compliance with the specifications.
The specifications are expected to be complete by August 2016. Thus, ETRI plans to further ensure compatibility with IEEE standards for healthcare. ETRI will also continue to cooperate with major Korean companies and startups to lead open IoT standardization.