A standard is only as trustworthy as the guarantee that using it will not trigger a patent suit from the people who wrote it. The three open standards — F-ACT, T-RUE and R-EAL — rest on the same royalty-free pledge and the same neutral-steward model, so any vendor, on any stack, can implement them without permission.
The core claims underlying the standards are pledged never to be asserted against anyone. The pledge covers any use — including, but not limited to, conformance — and it cannot be taken back.
The core claims are being placed with a neutral Swiss foundation, being established for this purpose, so no single company can ever hold a veto over the rules.
The originating company takes the core claims back only on a non-exclusive basis — the identical terms available to anyone else. No exclusive lock, no special deal.
The pledge withdraws only from a party that uses patents offensively against the community the standards serve. Everyone who plays fair keeps the guarantee.
The pledge is backed by a single Australian provisional patent application (2026900773, filed 2 February 2026) containing 504 claims. It is unexamined and confers no enforceable rights, and it lapses on 2 February 2027 unless it is converted into an international application. It is a defensive priority position — not a granted patent, not a “patent fortress”. We describe it that way deliberately: the point of the filing is to keep the core claims free, not to assert them.
The pledge covers the core claims that define what the standards require. It does not extend to particular methods of achieving conformance. The originating company, Society OS Pty Ltd, keeps separate operational intellectual property — trade secrets, know-how and the pending application above — covering how it builds its own products. The distinction is simple: the standard says what must be true; operational IP protects how one company does it. You are free to meet the standard by any method you like.
We do not describe the standards as “patented” or “patent-protected”, and we do not claim granted rights we do not hold. The filing is patent-pending and unexamined; where a claim matters, we point to the specific claim in the provisional application. Honesty about the IP is part of what makes the pledge worth trusting.