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No Further Appeals on OOXML? What About 11.4?

By Pamela Jones et al.

I've been puzzling over something in the ISO press release announcing that the four appeals against OOXML as an ISO standard, from Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela, would go no further. In the press release, it said this:

According to the ISO/IEC rules, DIS 29500 can now proceed to publication as an ISO/IEC International Standard. This is expected to take place within the next few weeks on completion of final processing of the document, and subject to no further appeals against the decision.

Wait a second. What's that "subject to no further appeals against the decision" part? What rules would those be? When I read the JTC1 Directives, Edition 5, Version 3.0 [PDF], I see in the section on appeals another step you can take if the TMB/SMB decide not to proceed with your appeal, which is what just happened:

11.4 Appeal Against a Decision of the TMB/SMBs

An appeal against a decision of the TMB/SMB shall be submitted to the Secretaries-General with full documentation on all stages of the case.

The Secretaries-General shall refer the appeal together with their comments to the members of the Councils within one month after receipt of the appeal.

The Councils shall make their decision within three months.

So, ask your lawyer, but I read that as saying a denial by the TMB/SMB is *not* necessarily the last word, no matter what the press release said, if an NB wishes to bring the appeal to the next level, which would be to the "Secretaries-General" and "the Council".

Who's that? How does that work? I've done some digging, and here's the joke. Two of the appealing NBs are listed as members of the Council. Again, ask your lawyer, but here's what I've found.

Full post as published by Groklaw on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).