  While patents and standards have been identified as essential driving
components of innovation and market growth, the inclusion of a patent in a
standard poses many difficulties. These difficulties arise from the
contradicting natures of patents and standards, which makes their combination
really challenging, but, also, from the opposing business and market strategies
of different patent owners involved in the standardisation process. However, a
varying set of policies has been adopted to address the issues occurring from
the unavoidable inclusion of patents in standards concerning certain industry
sectors with a constant high degree of innovation, such as telecommunications.
As these policies have not always proven adequate enough, constant efforts are
being made to improve and expand them. The intriguing and complicated
relationship between patents and standards is finally examined through a review
of the use cases of well-known standards of the telecommunications sector which
include a growing set of essential patents.
