April 2019 Who is leading the 5G patent race? - A patent landscape analysis on declared SEPs and - IPlytics
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Who is leading the 5G patent race? A patent landscape analysis on declared SEPs and standards contributions April 2019
1
The long-term vision is that 5G will empower the invention of thousands of new products,
technologies and services, increase productivity and allow for new industries to emerge.
A global 5G network will unify mobile communication in order to connect individuals or
devices to everything through the Internet of Things (IoT). 5G technologies will connect
vehicles, ships, buildings, meters, machines and other items with electronics, software,
sensors and the cloud. Embedded 5G technologies will e.g. allow machines to exchange
information yielding a direct integration of the physical world into computer-based
systems. The past years have shown that patent owners for 3G and 4G controlled how
mobile technologies were used in the smart phone industry. Thus, also 5G patent owners
will likely become technology and market leaders to enable 5G connectivity in various
markets. Using the database and analytics of the IPlytics Platform tool, table 1 illustrates
an increasing number of 5G declared standard essential patents over the past 4 years.
Standard essential patents (SEPs) are those that any company will have to use when
implementing the standardized 5G technology. The numbers show a sharp increase
arriving at over sixty thousand 5G SEPs.
Table 1: Yearly number of declared standard essential patents for 5G as to declaration
date
5G Standard Essential Patents Over Time
60.000 53.935
50.000
40.000
30.000
20.000
11.662
10.000 4.826*
2.055 2.053
0
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
*As to April 2019
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The analysis was based on state-of-the-art stemming and semantic indexing methods
searching in full text declared SEPs patent documents as well as in full text standards and
contribution documents. Figure 1 illustrates how the data on patents, declared SEPs,
standards and contribution documents is structured.
Figure 1. Data integration of patents, declared SEPs, standards and contributions
Worldwide Patents (USA, Europe, Korea, Japan, China, etc.)
90 M • Extended patent families
• Legal status (pending/granted, lapsed/revoked/active/expired)
Patent • Worldwide reassignment information
Documents • Worldwide litigation information
Declared Standard Essential Patents
280.000 • 30 SDOs and 11 patent pools
SEP • Patent and standards document ID
declarations • Licensing commitments (e.g. FRAND, reciprocity)
• Patent Pools
Standards Documents
4M • 2,5 M standards documents (Full text, author, supporting company)
Standards / • 1,5 M standards contributions (Full text, author, contributing company)
Contributions • Type (TS, TR, CR, WI), Status (revised, agreed, approved, noted)
While the implementation of 3G and 4G mainly concerned the smart phone industry, 5G
will enable such connectivity in the whole physical world through e.g. the Internet of
Things (IoT). In future, any sector subject to connectivity e.g. transport, energy,
manufacturing, healthcare or entertainment will make use of 5G and thus also use 5G
standard essential patents. Successful 3G and 4G patent licensing programs have
provided evidence that patent royalty incomes are highly lucrative and the target market
for licensing 5G patents will even increase since 5G patent holders will be able to extend
their licensing program to various use cases beyond smart phones. Using the database
and analytics of the IPlytics Platform tool, table 2 illustrates the top patent owner of
declared standard essential 5G patents. The Chinese company Huawei has the largest
portfolio followed by the Finish company Nokia and the South Korean companies
Samsung and LG. Qualcomm and Intel are the largest US companies holding 5G SEPs,
Sharp and Fujitsu are the largest Japanese 5G SEP owners.
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Table 2: Top 5G standard essential patent owner as to the number of patent families
Top 5G SEP family owner
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (CN) 1.554
Nokia (incl. Alcatel-Lucent) (FI) 1.427
Samsung (KR) 1.316
LG Electronics (KR) 1.274
ZTE Corp. (CN) 1.208
QUALCOMM Inc. (US) 846
Ericsson Inc. (SE) 819
Intel Corp (US) 551
China Academy Of Telecommunications Technology (catt) (CN) 545
Sharp Corp (JP) 468
Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd (CN) 207
Fujitsu Limited (JP) 20
InterDigital Technology Corp (US) 18
Sony Corporation (JP) 14
MediaTek Inc. (TW) 13
Apple Inc. (US) 12
Industrial Technology Research Institute (TW) 10
BlackBerry (CA) 9
KT Corp. (KR) 8
Electronics And Telecommunications Research Institute (KR) 8
ASUSTeK Computer, Inc. (TW) 8
IPR Licensing, Inc. (US) 8
NEC Corporation (JP) 7
Innovative Technology Limited (UK) 2
Sisvel International (IT) 1
HTC Corporation (TW) 2
Optis Wireless Technology Llc (US) 2
0 200 400 600 800 1.000 1.200 1.400 1.600 1.800
The automotive industry will most likely be one of the first industries to rely on 5G,
connecting vehicles to other vehicles, roadsides, traffic lights, buildings and the Internet
to process data across cars or in the cloud. But also, the smart factory of the future will
use 5G technologies for machine-to-machine communication, connected 3D printing or
augmented reality production. IoT (Internet of Things) technologies will allow
connectivity of sensors and data clouds. Smart energy technologies allow more intelligent
management of meters and energy consumption. Table 3 illustrates 5G standard essential
patents classified as to the industry application field. The number of %G SEPs for the
automotive application of 5G is by far the largest, followed by IoT, smart energy and smart
factory applications.
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Table 3: Number of 5G standard essential patents as to industry application over time
5G Sector Verticals
5.000
4.000
3.000
2.000
1.000
0
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Automotive IoT Smart Factory Smart Energy
While table 3 looks at absolute numbers, table 4 calculates the share of 5G patents over
time. While automotive that by far the largest share it is decreasing and especially IoT and
smart energy applications have increasing 5G SEP declarations.
Table 4: Number of 5G standard essential patents as to share of industry application over
time
5G Sector Verticals
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Automotive IoT Smart Factory Smart Energy
The interconnectivity of different systems and the communication across multiple
devices relies on a common specification of the 5G standards. Standards development of
complex technologies such as 5G therefore often integrates so many patented solutions.
Beyond the patent data analysis, it is also worth taking a look at the companies which are
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actively involved in the 5G standards development. The 5G standard is specified in
international meetings where companies present and submit technical contributions.
Using the database and analytics of the IPlytics Platform tool, table 5 shows the top
companies that have submitted technical contributions to 5G. Again, the Chinese Huawei
is responsible for most 5G contributions, followed by Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and
Samsung. NTT Docomo, NEC and Sony are the strongest Japanese 5G contributors.
Table 5: Top companies submitting technical contributions for 5G standards
Number of 5G contributions
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (CN) 10.844
Ericsson Inc. (SE) 8.428
Nokia (incl. Alcatel-Lucent) (FI) 5.843
QUALCOMM Inc. (US) 3.018
Samsung (KR) 2.621
ZTE Corp. (CN) 2.341
Intel Corp (US) 1.890
LG Electronics (KR) 1.650
China Mobile (CN) 1.345
CATT (CN) 1.240
NTT Docomo (JP) 1.173
MediaTek Inc. (TW) 397
NEC Corporation (JP) 381
Orange (FR) 378
Electronics And Telecommunications Research Institute (KR) 356
Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd (CN) 300
Keysight Technologies (UK) 253
Sony (JP) 241
ROHDE & SCHWARZ (DE) 228
MediaTek Inc. (TW) 200
Vivo Communication (CN) 190
Motorola Mobility (CN) 160
CATT (CCSA) 157
Sharp Corp (JP) 154
Fraunhofer (DE) 153
0 2.000 4.000 6.000 8.000 10.000 12.000
Another measure used to estimate involvement and investment in 5G standard
development is the attendance of engineers at the standard setting meetings where 5G
is developed. Attending these meetings reflects a company’s investment, as they send
highly skilled technical engineers who commit their time to prepare, travel and discuss
the latest 5G technologies. Using the database and analytics of the IPlytics Platform tool,
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table 6 illustrates the number of employees per company attending the 5G standard
setting meetings.
Table 6: Top companies as to their attending employees at 5G meetings
Top Company Attendance at 5G meetings
Huawei 1975
Ericsson 1538
Samsung 1311
Nokia 1232
Qualcomm 968
LG 884
Intel 767
ZTE 764
China Mobile 563
NEC 528
Motorola 525
CATT 486
NTT DOCOMO 427
InterDigital 396
Vodafone 376
AT&T 318
Orange 316
ETRI 294
MediaTek 293
Deutsche Telekom 271
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Action plan:
The licensing of 5G standard essential patents looks set to become a major issue not only
for the handset industry but for any manufacturing sector where connectivity will matter.
Senior patent managers and patent directors should bear in mind some key
considerations concerning 5G patents:
• Future technologies that enable connectivity will increasingly rely on patented
technology standards such 5G.
• The number of 5G standard essential patents is constantly rising – patent directors
should consider royalty costs and appropriate security payments in advance.
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• Patent directors should not only consider information retrieved from patent data,
but also monitor and consider standardization data such as technical contributions
and meeting attendance to understand the landscape of 5G patent woners
• Senior patent managers should bear in mind the dynamic market of standard
essential patents, where patent assertion entities often acquire patent portfolios
to assert extensive royalty payments
• Manufacturers should pursue a common strategy for patenting and
standardization to ensure that they are fully engaged in developing future
connectivity technologies
About IPlytics Platform:
IPlytics Platform is an IP intelligence tool that augments the analysis of technology
landscapes and a company’s competitive position. IPlytics Platform goes beyond patent
data by linking and processing more than 90 million patents to 4 million standards,
280,000 standard-essential patents, 60 million scientific articles and the profiles of 4
million companies and start-ups on one platform.
IPlytics Platform helps users to perform analysis in the patent valuation, patent
essentiality analysis and patent and standards landscaping fields, as well as trends in
patent transfer or litigation information. The intuitive graphical interface allows users to
easily navigate, analyse and drill down into full-text information, enabling in-depth
technology analysis or a long-term monitoring of market segments.
For further information contact:
Tim Pohlmann | pohlmann@iplytics.com | [T] +49 (0) 030 5557 4282
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