Suppose for very important standards, the governement (probably would have to be several, " a coalition of the willing") would buy all patents relating to it, and freeing them as far as said standard is concerned (costly, but less so than a minor war, for example).
There is precedent: Daguerrotype and the French governement. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype)
Instead of Daguerre obtaining a French patent, the French government provided a pension for him.[6] In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on August 14, 1839. Almost simultaneously, on August 19, 1839, the French government announced the invention as a gift “Free to the World.”