BANNOCKBURN, IL – The first draft of a proposed standard covering protection of IP designed into PCBs will be released next month during Apex.

The Intellectual Property Committee will release the draft during its scheduled meeting on April 6.

Members from all segments of electronics manufacturing are invited to attend to review the draft standard and provide input.

The draft, Best Industry Practices for Intellectual Property Protection, is intended to assist printed board manufacturers in the protection of IP for their customers in commercial, industrial and military/high reliability markets.

Developed as a high-level roadmap to best industry practices for printed board manufacturers, the draft IP standard addresses issues such physical and information security, employee data access, computer networks, destruction of scrap material, and more.

Also, under direction from Congress, the Department of Defense’s new executive agent for PCBs will develop a trusted source program for PCB manufacturers supplying the DoD. Similarly, many leading OEMs in the commercial sector are auditing their supply chain to ensure protection of their IP, says IPC, under whose auspices the standard is being written.