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This paper investigates the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in shaping the GSM (global system for mobile communications) industry. This industry is an example of a high-tech industry in which standards play a large role. In the process of designing the GSM standard, a lot of attention has been given to IPRs, mainly to avoid a situation in which a single IPR holder could hamper or even totally block the development of the standard. Nevertheless, the ultimate GSM standard contains a large amount of so-called ‘essential IPRs’, i.e. IPRs without which the implementation of GSM products is impossible. The GSM case provides an interesting example of how (essential) IPRs ownership and alliance networks influence each other, and how both of them affect market structure and market shares. The play with the essential GSM IPRs, and the strategy of Motorola in particular, is found to have dramatically changed …