Industry representatives in the US have welcomed a change to export rules governing products caught up in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) category covering lasers and other photonics technologies.
optics.org publisher SPIE and OSA both say that the amended “Category XII” part of the ITAR rules –published October 12 and effective from December 31 – allays some of the fears raised when new ITAR rules were proposed by the US Department of State in May 2015.
Category XII rules
Category XII of ITAR covers “fire control, laser, imaging, and guidance equipment”, incorporating a wide range of optics and photonics products that could in theory be used in weapons, but which in practice are overwhelmingly deployed in civilian applications.
In its amendment, the Department of State states that the revised Category XII rules introduce a new concept that has not been used in the other revised categories, explicitly controlling certain items based on the original intended end user. In key sections of the amendment, these are identified as defense “articles” if they are specially designed for a military end user.
Source: http://optics.org/news/7/10/16
