[thm76]

The issue is that those companies agreed to licence those patents non-discriminatory and at reasonable terms to anybody that wants to implement those standards (that rely on those patented technologies).

I don't think it would be possible to have industry standards (H.264, Wifi, 3G etc) without such obligations.

Apple (and others) need to pay the patent holders licence fees, but those fees should be non-discriminatory (i.e. similar to the terms offered to other companies). It's not OK to try to use those patents to shut a competitor out.

As far as I know Apple hasn't sued anybody over FRAND patents - they're perfectly in their right to try use their patents the way they do. Samsung, Motorola etc are free to do the same with non-FRAND patents, but what they're doing at the moment is definitely not OK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRAND

[ZeroGravitas]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#RAND