[dahauns]

>If standards don't embody important technical contributions, then why don't implementers rush to create alternative, unpatented standards? [..] If the choices truly are arbitrary, it should be trivial to avoid the relevant patents [..].

The by far most important aspect of those standards is not of technical nature. It's the host of agreements between the involved parties to not sue each other into oblivion. The patents involved have long ceased to hold the role of drivers of technical innovation, it's about the sheer amount of legal ammunition they can provide, and they have been created in such an image.

Lots of technical fields (esp. in IT) nowadays are a veritable minefield, scattered with a huge amount of incredibly broad and vaguely written patents, often playing mix-n-match with prior art or other kinds of dubious validity (which nevertheless have been granted - while it has gotten better, the allowance rate of the USPTO was close to 100% around the turn of the millenium...), where the attempt to navigate around any violations is a herculanean effort, and hardly possible without a veritable legal team. (And you should let them do the patent search anyway: If you dare to try it yourself and someone sues anyway - hooray for treble damages!)