A2K from FSF Europe's Georg Greve

"[...] Both patents and standards derive their justification from the public benefit, yet upholding one deprives the other of its function. Standards seek to counteract monopolies, patents establish them. Or, as Tomoko Miyamoto, Senior Counsellor of the Patent Law Section in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in her presentation: Patent thickets and patent hold-ups arise from legitimate exploitation of the exclusive rights intentionally conferred by patents. They are a normal and intended consequence of the patent system. [...]"

The article just went online at http://fsfeurope.org/standards/ps