Ericsson is a dominant player in the standards committee. By making patents that it own a part of the standard, it is able to "compulsorily" license its patents

Ericsson is a dominant player in the standards committee. By making patents that it own a part of the standard, it is able to "compulsorily" license its patents. Through this route it now owns a lot of "essential patents". So every time you make a call, or buy a phone you pay Ericsson a royalty. Ideally these patents like those backing web technologies should be open. Or at the very least expire after a limited time because it is globally enforced by a cartel. Ericsson has a lot of R&D labs in the western world working on core technology related to essential patents. But do not do much outside, strangely not even in India or China, which not only has a large pool of engineers but also contribute substantially to the royalty. It was only a matter of time before the Chinese figured this out. Wireless communication R&D unlike semiconductor is mostly done through computer simulations and experiments with off the shelf equipment and does not require enormous upfront cost. The genius of Huawei and the hand of China was not in subsidy but the captive market. Huawei was refused entry into the standards club, and China threatened to go with its own standard. This I believe started as early as with 3G standards. Neither "standardization by a cartel" nor "compulsory licensing" is Free market. MS bundling IE with Windows is just peanuts in comparison. Entire nations have no choice but to pay to this cartel.