Schneider Electric has transferred its copyright in the Mod bus protocol to Modbus-IDA, the non-profit organization formed in 2002 to advance industrial communications. Modbus was developed by Modicon, which became part of Schneider in 1979, and is now claimed to be the world`s most popular industrial protocol.

"This transfer establishes a milestone in the inevitable migration of our industry toward open protocols," says Modbus-IDA president, Ken Crater, who hopes to turn the protocol into a global standard.

According to Schneider vice-president Jean-Jacques Poubeau, the move demonstrates the company`s "willingness to move toward really open systems and architectures based on open standards and vendor-independent protocols. The association of the Modbus protocol with a standard Ethernet TCP-IP stack makes available the first really open and vendor-independent Industrial Ethernet solution."