Another information-free precept for the treatment of intellectual property originating from theoretical work is the suggestion that intellectual property owners commit to a cap on their licensing price before a standard is finalized. When a standard is designed, in many cases there are multiple routes to solving a given technological problem. Each one of these may be equally viable, but often a standard setting body will choose only one avenue (to pursue the analogy, the public authority may have enabled traffic on the upper branch of the river by building a lock on that branch; or the presence of a major city on the upper branch may have made this branch a superior alternative, as in Figure 10). After the decision has been made, however, the chosen patent becomes a “standard-essential patent (SEP),” and the patent owner can ask for a high royalty even though another patent could have offered comparable value, had the technology been designed differently.