Posner on industry standard patents

From within an article Potency of Industry Patents Key to U.S. Google-Apple Case , one finds

In the Chicago [N. D. Illinois district court] case, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner said he wouldn’t ban a product that follows an industry standard unless Apple refused to pay a fair rate.

“Once a patent becomes essential to a standard, the patentee’s bargaining power surges because a prospective licensee has no alternative to licensing the patent; he is at the patentee’s mercy,” Posner wrote.

Also within the article

“There’s some sort of movement to reduce ‘competition through litigation,’” said Will Stofega, a program manager at researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. “They really want to bring this whole issue to a head. Patent litigation is part of the ordinary due course of business, but this has gone beyond that.”

As to industry standard, one recalls the Unocal case on gasoline conforming to a California standard.