When the LTE standard was created, all of the companies agreed that their patents would be available under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms. If they didn't agree, they'd be left out of the standard. Qualcomm agreed that it wouldn't use its patents to push market power. That's an essential part of this.

When a standard is created, companies want their patents to be used in the standard because it means they get a cut of an entire industry. To get this cut, they have to agree that the cut will be small and that they won't exercise market power. Basically, they should get a somewhat reasonably objective amount of compensation for what they've provided.

Apple never agreed to that for the App Store. The app store wasn't a standard that everyone had to implement. Google runs a completely independent app store as do Microsoft and Amazon (on different platforms). Apple doesn't get a cut of those other app stores.

The thing is that Qualcomm is (allegedly) not following the law. That's the issue here. Qualcomm (allegedly) had agreed that its patents couldn't be used that way in order to ensure that its patents would be incorporated into standards that would give them a cut of an entire industry. Corporations are left to their own negotiations - but in this case, the complaint is that Qualcomm isn't following the law and therefore requires intervention.

The thing about wireless is that you need broad compatibility. That means that everyone has to implement the same stuff using the same patents. With operating systems, people can and do use different ones. No operating system vendor agreed to FRAND licensing in exchange for getting a piece of everything (albeit a smaller piece of more items).

I certainly understand the annoyance. Apple has substantial market power, but that market power came about because consumers chose Apple's products, not because Apple's products were blessed as an industry standard. Consumers do have alternative choices in a way that they don't with mobile standards. It might not be enough choice. Apple may still hold more power than you'd like, but Apple never agreed to FRAND licensing.

With a mobile standard, it uses the IP of many companies like Qualcomm, Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung. When creating the standard, they all agree that they'll license under FRAND terms or be excluded from the standard. That way, no one can screw up the standard with patent claims.

When a drug company creates a new drug, it's usually 100% their IP. So, they haven't made an agreement on IP costs. That's not to say that drug prices aren't problematic, but because drugs are wholly owned there isn't the issue of one company of many IP holders deciding a year later to charge a lot more for their IP.

Let's say one takes 5 different drugs. You don't have to take all 5. You can take 4 and get many of the benefits of the 5. With a wireless standard, you can't implement 4 of 5 patents and be able to communicate. That's what necessitates the FRAND terms. Without them, a standard would be agreed, but never actually rolled out because each patent holder would want to be the hold-out. Oh, you've licensed the other 4 patents? Now pay ALL THE MONEY for my last patent! With drugs, the idea is that you can take 4 of the 5 and then that 5th gets zero money from the patients that don't use it.

Now, drugs are still a very problematic market since, as you note, they can be life-saving and there can be only one choice. But because there isn't the same bundling of patents together, it's a very different problem to solve. You're not worried about someone getting their patent into a bundled drug and then being an ass. You're worried about price accessibility of single, a-la-carte patents.

It's certainly very problematic, but it's a different problem and different problems require different solutions. With drugs, part of the solution is that someone comes up with Lipitor and then someone else comes up with a competing statin and now two companies have patents on slightly different drugs that do mostly the same things and I can choose between them. When a drug is really highly priced, there's a lot of incentive to pour some money in that direction: you know solutions are there and you even have a roadmap that maybe you can work around to find a similar (but patent-distinct) route.

By contrast, with mobile, I can't decide that Qualcomm is costing too much and I'll use WiMAX from Intel instead. To an extent, when there's competition, I can do that with drugs. And there are incentives for drug competitors to be created since there's a lot of money to be had even with increased competition. Likewise, Google and Microsoft have pushed their competitors to Apple because of those incentives. But there's little competition to compete against a standard and, well, get nothing for it. You'd rather be on the inside of the standard and agree to give up your market power in exchange for the cut you get from the standard.

That doesn't mean that drug companies or Apple/Google don't have substantial power to do less-than-good things. They do. But they never agreed that they'd give up their power to become part of a monopoly-standard (and they do have competition, even if that competition isn't enough). Qualcomm did agree to that so that they'd be on the inside of a standard everyone would have to use.