Patents Patents are intellectual property rights to inventions, granted by the governments of nations. The owner of a patent is given exclusive rights to make, sell, offer to sell, or use the invention for a limited time. That is, the owner may exclude others from using the invention. The owner may also offer a license to another to use the invention in exchange for some payment, often referred to as a royalty. Thus, patents and standards are very different.
Most countries require that an invention be novel or new in order to receive a patent.
There are some exceptions, such as a one-year grace period for filing in the US on an invention conceived before the publication date of the standard. However, there may be patent applications pending in the patent office that were filed before the standard was published, but have not yet come to issue. When and if they do issue, they may be asserted against anyone using the patented invention. In addition, there may be valid patents that were issued before the standard was published, and some may have been issued before the standard was adopted. Each standards body is free to have its own process for creating and adopting standards.