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XRS 001:2026 is published under CC BY-ND 4.0. Anyone may download it, print it, attach it to a technical file, host it, teach it and cite it, provided it is reproduced in full and attributed.
Licence · economic model · XRS 002 and XRS 003
The reference is free. The mark is licensed. The control is funded.
This asymmetry is the model itself. A free reference serves adoption; adoption makes the value of the mark; the mark funds the control without which it would not survive. The price list is published, uniform, built at full cost, and it applies identically to every applicant.
What needs no licence
Reading, citing, applying: free, without asking.
Measure and design
A manufacturer may measure, classify and optimise its products on the XRS scale without a licence, as long as the level is not communicated to a third party. Internal use in design is outside the scope of the licence.
Research and teaching
Declaration right and qualification test are waived for research, teaching and scientific publication, on a simple statement of non-commercial purpose. The declaration is still instructed, registered and monitored like any other.
The licence is required from the moment the level is communicated outside: on a pack, a leaflet, a distributed data sheet, a website, a tender response or any commercial communication.
Why a licence
A mark without control means nothing — and ceases to exist.
A classification scale is only worth the trust that can be placed in the declarations made in its name. If a product could claim an XRS level without the measurement having been conducted under verifiable conditions, the declaration would no longer inform the buyer, and the scale would lose within months the meaning the reference worked to give it.
Control is therefore not an administrative formality added to the licence: it is its counterpart and its reason for being. It is also a legal necessity. A trademark licence granted without effective control of the quality of the products that carry it is treated, in several jurisdictions including the United States, as an abandonment of the mark: the licensor who does not control loses what it has licensed.
Instruction of files, surveillance tests, adversarial sampling and the keeping of the public register are a real and recurring cost. The declaration right funds that cost, and nothing else. A price list that did not fund control would lead to its interruption, and thereby to the loss of the mark.
Three regimes
Who measures, and what the marking may say.
The regime is chosen by the nature of the declaration and by the licensee's ability to prove it. Whatever the regime, every declaration is instructed on documents by XALPES LLC, entered in the public register, valid for twenty-four months, and monitored. The regime appears in the declaration itself.
Controlled self-declaration
The licensee tests in its own qualified laboratory and sends the file. Fastest and cheapest for the licensee; the most controlled: one adversarial sampling per validity period, at XALPES's expense.
- Bench covering 20–160 L/min, traceable calibration, functional independence from production and sales
- Raw values without rounding, so that XALPES recomputes the Rs itself
- 100 % surveillance
Marking: "XRS level X_ — self-declared"
Third-party test
An accredited laboratory independent of the licensee conducts the tests and transmits the file directly. The ordinary regime, required for public procurement, regulatory files and consumer communication.
- Laboratory recognised by XALPES; ISO/IEC 17025 for pressure-drop measurement is a presumption of compliance
- Test price set by that laboratory, outside the XRS price list
- Surveillance by sampling, 20 %
Marking: "XRS level X_"
XALPES certification
The Test Laboratory Division of XALPES LLC conducts the tests, writes the report, determines the level and issues the attestation. The only regime that authorizes the wording "certified by XALPES"; the highest probative value.
- Five units from two batches, four flows, 24 h conditioning, twenty measurements
- Optional extension: work of breathing on a breathing simulator per ISO 16900-12
- Surveillance by sampling, 20 %
Marking: "XRS level X_ certified by XALPES"
Price list · XRS 003:2026
Built at full cost, with a 15 % safety margin and no profit on the declaration right.
The declaration right covers the instruction of the file, the surveillance test, the adversarial sampling and the register, for a validity of twenty-four months. It is set at the full cost of these four items multiplied by 1,15 and rounded up to the next fifty dollars. The operating result forms on the test service in regime C and, over time, on volume — not on the right to declare.
Self-declaration
1 800 $/ declaration · 24 months
- Renewal 1 300 $
- Qualification test conducted in the licensee's laboratory, no XALPES charge
- Full cost to XALPES: 1 532 $ — the 100 % surveillance makes this the most expensive regime for XALPES, and the cheapest for the licensee
Third-party test
700 $/ declaration · 24 months
- Renewal 500 $
- Test invoiced by the third-party laboratory, outside this price list
- Full cost to XALPES: 572 $
XALPES certification
550 $/ declaration · 24 months
- Renewal 400 $
- Qualification test on five units: 1 300 $ per test
- Entry cost for a first product, right and test included: 1 850 $
| Service | A | B | C | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial declaration right | 1 800 $ | 700 $ | 550 $ | 24 months |
| Renewal right | 1 300 $ | 500 $ | 400 $ | 24 months |
| Qualification test on 5 units | — | — | 1 300 $ | per test |
| Doubt-removal test on 20 units | 5 050 $ | 5 050 $ | 5 050 $ | per test |
| Unsatisfactory surveillance control | 1 200 $ | 1 200 $ | 1 200 $ | per control |
| Artwork modification outside renewal | 175 $ | 175 $ | 175 $ | per modification |
The surveillance control is invoiced at cost, without margin, and only when it is unsatisfactory; when it is satisfactory it remains at XALPES's expense. The doubt-removal test is always conducted by XALPES LLC, whatever the regime.
For comparison, the qualification of a product with the Bluetooth SIG — a scheme of identical structure, free specification and paid mark — costs between 6 000 and 12 000 dollars depending on the membership level. The XRS entry cost in regime C is about thirty per cent of the lowest of these amounts: a deliberate positioning of maximum adoption, which makes the scheme loss-making for its first two years.
Degressivity and free cases
Objective, measurable, published criteria — never a negotiated discount.
An allowance applies to the declaration right according to the number of declarations in force held by the licensee. It reflects the real decrease of the unit instruction cost with repetition; the surveillance cost being constant, the floor is 50 %. The allowance applies neither to tests nor to controls.
| Declarations in force | Allowance | C | B | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – 4 | — | 550 $ | 700 $ | 1 800 $ |
| 5 – 14 | 20 % | 440 $ | 560 $ | 1 440 $ |
| 15 – 39 | 35 % | 375 $ | 455 $ | 1 170 $ |
| 40 and more | 50 % | 275 $ | 350 $ | 900 $ |
Internal design use
No right due. Measuring, classifying and optimising a product on the scale requires no licence until the level is communicated to a third party.
Research, teaching, publication
Declaration right and test waived, on a simple statement of non-commercial purpose.
First declaration
The declaration right is waived for a licensee's first declaration. The test remains invoiced.
Seeding programme
The declaration right is waived for every declaration registered before 31 December 2027. The test remains invoiced. Renewal at the price list then in force.
A waived right never waives the control: a free declaration is instructed, registered and monitored under the same conditions as a paid one, the cost being borne by XALPES LLC on its own funds. A free declaration that also waived control would recreate exactly the "naked licence" the whole scheme exists to avoid.
Four constraints on the price list
Public, uniform, non-exclusive, funded.
Non-discrimination
The reference is applied to every applicant that satisfies it. Allowances rest on the number of declarations, the registration date and the non-commercial purpose — never on a client's size, seniority or strategic interest.
No exclusivity
No territorial, sectoral or temporal exclusivity can be granted on the designation, at any price: it would amount to refusing a qualified third party.
Separation of activities
If XALPES LLC were itself to market masks carrying the designation, the certification-mark regime would be closed to it in several jurisdictions. That arbitration is made before any filing.
Control is funded
The price list cannot be durably set below the full cost of instruction and surveillance. A discount below that floor would not be a commercial policy but a disarming of control.
The price list is revised at most once a year with ninety days' notice, and never applies to a declaration in force. By 31 December 2027 at the latest, the assumptions of XRS 003 — instruction time, 20 % surveillance rate — are replaced by observed costs, upwards or downwards, in a new edition.
Procedure
From a product to a registered level, in five steps.
- Contact and regimeWrite to the Test Laboratory Division with the product, the intended markets and the regime considered. The licence contract and its technical, artwork and financial annexes (XRS 002, 003, 004) are communicated to the candidate.
- Sampling and testFive units at least, drawn at random from current production, from two batches, in the reference state. Pressure drop at 30, 60, 95 and 140 L/min after 24 h conditioning; developed area recorded.
- Declaration fileForm, bill of materials, test report with raw values, sampling record, calibration certificates, artwork mock-ups. An incomplete file is returned without instruction.
- Instruction — 15 working daysXALPES recomputes the Rs from the raw values, checks the internal consistency and the conformity of the mock-ups, may request a document or a control test, and accepts or refuses by a reasoned decision.
- Attestation and registerNumber XRS-D-YYYY-R-NNNN-X_, entry in the public register, validity 24 months. Any substantial modification of the product — media supplier, grammage, layer, geometry, valve, site — ends the declaration.
Declare a level
The seeding programme waives the declaration right for every declaration registered before 31 December 2027. Send the product reference, the intended regime and your test capacity; the laboratory answers within five working days.
Questions
Frequently asked.
Is the XRS marking a certification or a label?
Neither. It is a declarative marking backed by a dated test and granted under licence with quality control. Only regime C authorizes the wording "certified by XALPES", which refers to who measured, not to a regulatory approval. "XRS label", "XRS approved" and "meets the XRS standard" are prohibited wordings.
Does an XRS level say anything about protection?
No. The level qualifies breathing comfort only. Filtration efficiency is declared separately, under the applicable standard, and the two are never placed in the same block on a pack. A mask can be X2 and highly filtering, or X5 and poorly filtering.
What if my measurement is close to a boundary?
A measurement within 12 % of a boundary is recorded in the test report as lying in the overlap band, and the least favourable level is declared. The licensee who contests may request a doubt-removal test on twenty units from four batches, conducted by XALPES: the favourable level is granted only if the mean lies more than 12 % on the favourable side and no unit crosses the boundary.
Why does regime A cost more than regime C?
Because it costs XALPES more: the 100 % adversarial surveillance it requires is entirely at XALPES's expense, whereas the licensee saves the test. The inversion is intended; it steers towards regimes B and C, which are also those with the highest probative value.
Can I obtain exclusivity for my market?
No, at any price. Exclusivity would amount to refusing the mark to a qualified third party, which the non-discrimination rule forbids.
What happens to my data?
Only the declaration number, the licensee, the commercial designation, the level, the regime and the expiry date appear in the public register. Measured values, bill of materials and reports stay confidential; they are used for the second edition of the reference only after aggregation over at least five licensees and full anonymisation.