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The DOI Foundation is the governance body of the DOI System:

•It safeguards (owns or licences on behalf of registrants) all intellectual property rights relating to the DOI System.

•It works with RAs and using the underlying technical standards of the DOI System components to ensure that any improvements made to the system (including creation, maintenance, registration, resolution and policymaking of DOI names) are available to any DOI name registrant, and that no third party licenses might reasonably be required to practice the DOI name standard.

•It provides agreed standards of governance, scope, and policy, and also a technical infrastructure (resolution mechanism, proxy servers, mirrors, back-up) and a social infrastructure (persistence commitments, fall-back procedures, cost-recovery (on a self-sustaining model), and shared use of the system).