The issues around patents are particularly dangerous for standards bodies like the IETF, IEEE etc. Standards are collaborative efforts where many companies get together to ensure interoperability which is absolutely necessary for a particular technology to be successful. The Internet would not possible without interoperability.
Many standards bodies such as the IETF have adopted RAND (Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) policy around intellectual property licensing. That in itself doesn’t completely address the patent issues. It just says that you will offer a reasonable license.
Other standard bodies are more “closed” meaning the participants have to give up their IP for the standard. In that case the standard has a patent pool and try and deal with the IP issue up front. This happens often in consumer electronics standards. Manufactures give up their IP to the group in order to create interoperable products for the future.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a good example where members must give up their IP to participate and use the technology. It's been wildly successful.
What about patent holders that don’t participate in these standards? What typically happens is that if the standard becomes widely accepted, then the patent holder usually turns into a patent troll because there is so much money to be made after the fact. This is a concern for standards bodies but if successful then the members likely have enough prior art to protect them.
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