Unless I misunderstand, they are codifying their patents into open standards like 5G.
So you can't implement 5G without their patents. Add that to encouraging complexity (10,000+ pages of spec to do something outwardly similar to WiFi), and they have a really effective moat around an "open" standard.
The entire protocol space is somewhat arbitrary. This is a bit like patenting a strategy in a board game you created, and that everyone is required to play.
I've been saying for years that patents and copyrights should be ruled out in communication protocols and communication formats, including file formats, file systems, languages, APIs and even fonts.
Getting your patents into standards is the fundamental business model of many patent holders. Not just for big business either, I’m friends with a bunch of PhDs/researchers who all have patents in their respective fields, they all know that they’ll only get paid for the patents that end up in standards, and devote a non-trivial amount of effort to pursuing that outcome.
> they are codifying their patents into open standards like 5G.
What do you mean by open standard? I don't think 5G is patent-free by any means, nor is 802.11/Wi-Fi for that matter!
That's just how most hardware standards are developed, as far as I know. The best thing you can hope for is a consortium maintaining a FRAND patent pool, like for the MPEG family of codecs (and even there you can't be sure that there aren't any patent trolls lurking outside the pool).
So you can't implement 5G without their patents. Add that to encouraging complexity (10,000+ pages of spec to do something outwardly similar to WiFi), and they have a really effective moat around an "open" standard.
The entire protocol space is somewhat arbitrary. This is a bit like patenting a strategy in a board game you created, and that everyone is required to play.