Another good example of how bad patents (and so called standards bodies) can be, you can see at a
groklaw article. It says that if Microsoft's OOXML is accepted as a standard, one of the requirements for an OOXML document is that sound elements should be... MP3! Very nice towards the Open Source community! This is not an open standard, it's a license encumbered standard.
The article also mentions CeBit:
"German police raided 51 booths at the CeBIT computing show this week because of breaches of audio compression (MP3) patents....
Italian firm Sisvel, which itself has a booth at CeBIT in Hall 19, filed patent complaints in Hanover on behalf of big companies including Philips and France Telecom. The company says that through its agreements it can demand a licensing fee for consumer electronics devices sold in Europe."