The reward is that if you are successful, you get to interoperate with other people. That is the value that is unlocked, and it is a pretty huge value. The pro

The reward is that if you are successful, you get to interoperate with other people. That is the value that is unlocked, and it is a pretty huge value. The problem with patents and standards is that people are trying to charge for that value (the value of the network effects), and not the value of the technology. The big ideas of video compression are mostly more than 30 years old now, but the new patents are mostly on slight tweaks or additions (or things like header flags and other nonsense). No one would pay money for them except for the fact that they are part of the standard.