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Dave Lindbergh's avatar

It's been a while, but I think such a move would be an antitrust violation - if the patent holder gave preferred licensing terms only to other members of the standards committee.

Usually licensing of patents necessary to implement a standard (I and I suspect a court would think "efficiently enough to be practical" is implied there) has to be done on a non-discriminatory basis. All applicants have to be offered the same terms.

Of course, actors try to play games at the edges. If an implementation is costly and time-consuming, and requires expertise to do well (expertise that takes time to develop), a player who has already made those investments will try to get that technology mandated in the standard, for the sake of the time-to-market advantage and because they think that by starting further up the learning curve, they may have a sustainable advantage over competitors.

OTOH, their competitors are watching for just such moves.

Sometimes people get away with stuff. Other times there's log-rolling (I'll let your pet thing in if you'll let mine in), etc.

Other times the high-investment thing is really enough better than the alternatives that it's worthwhile letting somebody have an advantage from their previous investment, for example if competitors think their resulting less competitive position might be outweighed by creating a bigger market.

Of course some players have longer time horizons than others, and some have a more enlightened view of their self-interest than others.

In other words, politics.

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Peter Gerdes's avatar

Thanks! But how is this not horribly abused?

For instance the obvious cartel move in tech would be to release a standard that demands tech which is theoretically open, non-exclusive etc but requires features whose *efficent* implementation requires tech/trade secrets known only to one of the companies making the standard (and throw each such company that bone).

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