The antitrust ghost in the standard-setting machine [IEEE standards and RAND licensing]

It is the policy of the IEEE and many other standard-setting organizations to request that any patented technology incorporated into a technical standard be made available to all users of the standard on reasonable and nondiscriminatory (RAND) terms. By the same token, such organizations typically require that participants engaged in formulating a standard disclose whether the proposed standard´s use would infringe patents that their companies own. They must also disclose whether such patents will be subject to RAND licensing.