Context: Last month, Nokia announced it “reached the milestone of 7,000 patent families declared as essential to 5G with more to follow” (January 7, 2025 ip fray article). The company further invested $150 billion in R&D and standardization since 2000 and owns over 20K patent families, it said at the time, meaning one in three Nokia patent families is 5G-essential.
What’s new: Today, after independently assessing this claim, Patently – a data service founded by Jerome Spaargaren like the EIP law firm – confirmed that Nokia has declared over 6,300 published standard-essential patent (SEP) families to 5G specifications (February 7, 2025 Patently press release). Additionally, Nokia has over 700 unpublished families that have been declared essential to 5G, all of which are within the first 18 months after their first filing. These figures pertain exclusively to 5G and do not include patent families only declared to earlier generations of cellular technology, Patently has found. Beyond its 5G contributions, Patently said Nokia has also declared well over 1,700 patent families essential to earlier generations, “further demonstrating its long-standing impact on mobile communications”.
Direct impact and wider ramifications: This reaffirms Nokia’s leadership in 5G contributions, as well as other technologies. The company has already celebrated some major wins in 2025, such as signing a deal with Chinese mobile device maker Transsion, renewing with Samsung and winning the first-ever Germany-wide patent injunction against Amazon Prime Video streaming service – demonstrating the strength of its portfolio outside of mobile communications, too.
Patently, which also published a wider report on the 5G SEP landscape early last month (January 3, 2025 ip fray article), noted that the assessment process considered all of Nokia’s subsidiaries, including Alcatel Lucent:
“Nokia is recognized as the Ultimate Declarant in the same way it is acknowledged as the Ultimate Owner of patent families held under its various subsidiaries.”
The verification process cross-referenced Nokia’s information statements and licensing declarations held in the ETSI special reports on declarations with Patently’s advanced family processing. The process accounts for variations in declaration formats, unpublished families, and legal ownership changes across multiple jurisdictions.
Nokia was also highlighted as a top contributor to 5G-related technical standards in a recent LexisNexis’ 5G patent race report (January 23, 2025 ip fray article), and its executives have leveraged its status to voice concerns over the proposed EU regulation on SEPs. Last month, for example, the company co-hosted a summit in Brussels with Ericsson to “catalyze the momentum across the EU to implement the actions required to deliver future European digitalization success” and the withdrawal of “harmful proposals” such as the proposed EU SEP Regulation was one of the key points on the agenda (January 16, 2025 ip fray article).
Nokia continues to not only be a major contributor to 5G standards but also an active enforcer in other key technologies. Today, the company won the first-ever Germany-wide patent injunction against Amazon Prime Video (February 7, ip fray article), while last week the USITC’s ALJ Doris Johnson Hines held another of the company’s patents was infringed by Amazon products in the U.S. (January 30, 2025 ip fray article). This means there could even be two U.S. import bans over up to five patents in place soon.
Last week, it also signed a new deal – with no litigation – with Chinese mobile device maker Transsion (January 30, 2025 ip fray article), after renewing with Samsung (January 15, 2025 ip fray article), and appointing Patrik Hammarén, who was previously Acting President, as President of Nokia Technologies and member of the Nokia Group Leadership Team (January 22, 2025 ip fray article).