The IETF does care: they require that the owners of any licensed,
patented, or otherwise restrictively controlled technologies release
those technologies for use by the IETF.
Nope. IETF will *ask* them to agree to license it fairly, but *does
not* require them to do so. A standards-track protocol can use
technology that is subject to IPR claims, even absent such a license,
if the concensus is to use that technology.
On the other hand, if the technology (for whatever reason) doesn't get
consensus of the community, it doesn't get used in a standards-track
protocol.
See RFC 2026 for the definitive statements.
Keith