IPlytics: 5G Patent Report

1. The next industrial revolution and 5G patents

As more companies announce 5G standard essential patents (SEPs), it is critical to keep up with the filing volume of patent leaders in the interconnect space.

As connectivity becomes increasingly integrated into mechanical products, the next industrial revolution will see more and more technological convergence.

We will also see 5G technology becoming increasingly important in other industries, with smart factories, smart homes, smart meters and even smart medical devices relying on 5G connectivity.

2. 5G patent landscape

To identify 5G patents, IPlytics aggregated all patents filed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and matched them with the 3GPP standards database.

Judging from the 5G patent applications, China's Huawei leads with a share of over 15.39%, followed by Qualcomm with 11.24%; ZTE with 9.81%; Samsung with 9.67%; and Nokia with 9.01%.

Looking at 5G patent families, Nokia has the largest portfolio of 5G families granted by the EPO/USPTO with a share of 15.29%, followed by Samsung with 15.10%. When considering only patent families that were not declared for previous generations, Qualcomm and Huawei have the highest shares.

Overall, the data shows that the top 10 companies own more than 80% of all patent families granted for 5G, while the top 20 companies own more than 93% of all patent families granted for 5G. These numbers confirm that there are only a few major large 5G patent owners, but looking at overall 5G declarations, the database has more than 100 individual companies that have declared at least one 5G patent.

Going forward, licensing of 5G SEPs will become a major issue not only for the mobile phone industry, but also for any manufacturing industry that affects connectivity.

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