Fair Use Rules

Consistency and fairness are guiding principles for SPEC. To assure these principles are sustained, the following guidelines have been created with the intent that they serve as specific guidance for any organization (or individual) who chooses to make public comparisons using SPEC benchmark results.

Fair Use Guidelines

When any organization or individual makes public claims using SPEC benchmark results, SPEC requires that the following guidelines be observed:

1. Reference is made to the SPEC trademark. Such reference may be included in a notes section with other trademark references (see http://www.spec.org/spec/trademarks.html for all SPEC trademarks and service marks).
   
   
2. The SPEC web site (http://www.spec.org) or a suitable sub page is noted as the source for more information.
   
   
3. If competitive comparisons are made the following rules apply:
   1. the results compared must utilize SPEC metrics and be compliant with that SPEC benchmark's run and reporting rules,
   2. the basis for comparison must be stated,
   3. the source of the competitive data must be stated, and the licensee (tester) must be identified or be clearly identifiable from the source,
   4. the date competitive data was retrieved must be stated,
   5. all data used in comparisons must be publicly available (from SPEC or elsewhere)
   
   
4. Comparisons with or between non-compliant test results can only be made within academic or research documents where the deviations from the rules for any non-compliant results have been disclosed.

Please see the specific Fair Use rules for each group (GWPG, HPG, and OSG) for any additional and specific requirements.

Approved Metrics and Submetrics

For the lists of approved SPEC metrics and submetrics that may be used for competitive comparisons within the guidelines of the Fair Use rules, as well as any guidelines for use of SPEC benchmark results for research purposes, please see the specific Fair Use rules for each group.

Acceptable Language

The following paragraphs are examples of acceptable language when publicly using SPEC benchmarks for competitive comparisons:

Example:
SPEC® and the benchmark name SPECviewperf® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of Jan 12, 2001. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing workstation currently shipping by Vendor 1, Vendor 2 and Vendor 3. For the latest SPECviewperf® benchmark results, visit www.spec.org/gpc.

Example:
SPEC® and the benchmark name SPEComp® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of Jan 12, 2001. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing 4-cpu servers currently shipping by Vendor 1, Vendor 2 and Vendor 3. For the latest SPEC OMP benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/omp/results/ .

Example:
SPEC® and the benchmark name SPECweb® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of Jan 12, 2001. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing 4-cpu servers currently shipping by Vendor 1, Vendor 2 and Vendor 3. For the latest SPECweb99 benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/web99.