[my_first_acct]

A pitfall not mentioned in the article: a private-industry member of the standard-setting body may fail to disclose that they are applying for a patent on an essential component of the standard.

For instance, in the 1990s, the oil company Unocal managed to insert a patented technology into the mandatory Reformulated Gasoline standards in California [1]. Eventually Unocal was hit by a class-action lawsuit and an FTC action, but that took years, and in the meantime all refiners in California had to pay royalties to Unocal in order to comply with the state mandate.

[1] http://www.greenpatentblog.com/2008/09/01/chevron-to-pay-cal...

[philpem]

This has happened with the ETSI DMR spec. Several key technologies needed to implement it require patent licences from Motorola. On the plus side, ETSI requires patent disclosures, and those are on their website.

MPEG is similarly encumbered.