MPEG 1/2/3/4, license fee, or robbery?

I throw this topic for people as puzzled as me to discuss. those so
called "INTERNATIONAL STANDARD" dorminate in current market, but charge

high license fee for every product on the market related to it, all
those license fee eventually be paid by consumers. some manufacturers
don't even realize it before MPEG LA knock on their doors. suppose you
are manufacturing an Mpeg4/H.264 encoder,and you use 10 IC related to
it, those 10 IC companies will be charged license fee before they can
produce those ICs, and you will be charged for another one or more.

to me, it's not like standard anymore, let alone International
standard, more like trademark for a group of private companies or
individuals. in the name of international standard, lure people from
all over the world to jump in, and produce products, finally find out
they can't even afford the license fee.
individual company can have their proprietary standard(such as real
audio, real video or quicktime), but they can't call it international
standard. I don't see many products related to it either except their
own.


it's more concerned that there is growing trend more international
standard become patented with license fee. name a few: AVC/H.264,
DVB-T,1394, VC-1, ATSC, DVB-H, Blu-Ray etc. I don't know how consumers
can benefit from it with just a few companies charging extorted license

fee.


I wonder how today would look like if Ethernet was charged license fee.

.