Patents and standardization, part 1: A tutorial on patents

In an ideal world, the standards promulgated by standards-development organizations (SDOs), such as the IEEE, ITU, and ETSI, would always result from an impartial comparison of proposed solutions made in an environment "free of distortion, bias, or manipulation by private interests." In the real world, however, standards tend to be a result of compromises and, in some cases, hardfought battles among parties, often competitors, who have diverse private interests. Considerations beyond technical merit are generally in play. For better or worse, one of those considerations is often the understanding that intellectual property may protect a candidate solution. Of the four types of intellectual property - patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets - the one that looms largest in the standards-development context is patents. This article provides a foundational overview of patents and patent systems with a specific focus on the patent laws and procedures of the United States. Where feasible, the article also identifies similarities and differences in the patent laws and procedures of other countries.