Free Rules

Please note that the name FREE RULES does not refer to prices, but rather to the freedom that people should have to be able to use technical standards so that in all fields, they can use, manufacture and make available quality products.

The application allows users to search and access technical standards across various fields—such as road construction, fire safety, general engineering works, and more—promoting quality control in multiple sectors.

We submit this letter to offer clear legal, technical, and social clarification regarding our app.

Our app was created solely to centralize and organize public access to technical standards that are already freely available online. It serves as a public repository, helping users quickly locate documents that would otherwise take hours or days to find scattered across thousands of sites, repositories, forums, and academic sources.

This initiative aligns with important legal precedents in various countries, including a ruling from Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) in Extraordinary Appeal No. 1.210.950 (Theme 1014 of General Repercussion). The STF decided that technical standards incorporated by reference into laws or regulations enter the public domain and must be freely accessible. Once adopted as mandatory, such standards can no longer be considered private or commercially restricted. The Court emphasized that public interest, safety, and life protection take precedence over any commercial claims to restrict access.

Similar rulings have emerged globally:

United States: In Public.Resource.Org v. ASTM International, the U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) held that standards incorporated into law cannot remain under commercial restriction.

Germany: The Federal Administrative Court also confirmed that legally incorporated standards must be freely accessible.

India: Ongoing efforts in the Supreme Court aim to ensure public access to technical standards.

Brazilian Copyright Law (Law No. 9.610/1998, Articles 15 and 17) also supports this. It clarifies that legal entities do not hold moral rights over technical standards. Patrimonial rights may apply to the structure of a collection, but not to the public technical content itself, which consists of universally recognized procedures.

Importantly, this app was built in response to strong and ongoing community demand. For over five years, we’ve maintained a technical Telegram group with over 30,000 members and a WhatsApp group with more than 600 participants. These professionals exchange standards, clarify doubts, and share work tools. The app has proven invaluable for fieldwork, project planning, and real-time consultations. However, iOS users remain underserved, leading to an unjustified disparity in access to this vital resource.

Our app does not sell standards or profit from them. It functions strictly as a tool to organize and link to documents already circulating freely on the internet.

This project plays a crucial social, educational, and technical role—benefiting engineers, architects, technicians, doctors, lawyers, students, and others who depend on these standards for compliance, safety, and innovation.

To summarize:

The app does not violate intellectual property rights.

It follows legal principles on public access to information.

It is supported by legal precedents in Brazil, the U.S., Germany, and beyond.

Its mission is to democratize access to essential technical knowledge.

In light of these facts, we respectfully request that Apple approve our app for App Store distribution, recognizing its educational and social utility, its legal compliance, and its value to thousands of professionals.

We are available to provide any further documentation, legal opinions, or technical clarification required.