Patents, Standards and Trade

The next legal issue relates to what happens when a standards committee wants to include patented technology in its proposed standard.

A patent is a legal, government-granted monopoly. In some ways, patented technology and the principles of standardization sound like the very antithesis of each other. Companies patent their technology to protect the product of their research and development. Yet at the same time, they may want to have a standard based on the same technology.

By incorporating patented technology into a standard without certain safeguards, that monopoly may become an improper restraint of trade.