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Could the growing number of device manufacturers demanding intellectual property royalties of somewhere around 2.25% per device sold be establishing a de facto cartel, establishing fees that collectively render it impossible for new competitors to enter the field? That would appear to be the subject matter to which European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia alluded during a speech in Paris last Friday.

Comm. Almunia now has the job made famous by Comm. Neelie Kroes during her relentless pursuit of Microsoft as Commissioner for Competition. During Friday's speech, Almunia appeared to suggest that a new enforcement mechanism may be necessary to prevent manufacturers from establishing barriers to entry under the guise of "FRAND" - fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory - licensing terms.

What if a patent granted in the State of Texas were invalid in Delaware? If the United States were a loose federation of states, as originally envisioned by its Articles of Confederation (the forerunner to its current Constitution), the validity of an invention in one state may have been challenged by another. In the European Union - which is not officially bound by a federal government - inventors (including companies) may apply for a European patent. But then all 27 member states have to incorporate all those patents (or not) into their existing systems.

The principal agenda of Neelie Kroes since ascending to the vice presidency of the European Commission (the upper house of E.U. parliament) is to set forth the so-called "digital agenda" for the continent. But she's also the standard bearer for a movement called the single market, where Europe as a whole is recognized as a unified trading partner. Key to her agenda is the implementation of a unitary patent system, where a European patent applies to every member country without question. It's a slow march towards federalism, as well as a move to standardize the classifications of patents, including for software. But today, the pace of that march may have just sped up.