While patents do confer a form of monopoly protection to an inventor and their assignees, that does not give anyone the right to form a cartel of multiple paten

While patents do confer a form of monopoly protection to an inventor and their assignees, that does not give anyone the right to form a cartel of multiple patent holders who work in concert to fix the price for the combined product. MPEG-LA's workaround for that, which is what is at stake here, is some sort of carve-out with the FTC, stipulating that because it's an emerging standard, MPEG should not be subject to the normal restrictions on patent pooling.