Depending on your perspective, a patent pool can be great or a significant challenge.  On one hand, a patent pool makes it easy to deal with one licensing entity rather than many individual licensors, each of which may be looking for a significant payout.  On the other hand, patent pools may include some patents that are unnecessary or weak.  Clients in the smart meter space will either have to pay the patent pool or investigate a significant number of patents.  Turning the tables, it may make sense for the smart meter companies to band together as a group and investigate the patents in the patent pool.  Finally, if this patent pool is successful, we can expect even more patent pools in the future.