Context: Last year, Toyota became the first Avanci Vehicle licensee to also participate as a licensor in Avanci’s 4G and 5G Vehicle pools (October 10, 2025 ip fray article). This followed its acquisition of dozens of 4G and 5G standard-essential patents (SEPs) from fellow Avanci Vehicle licensor OPPO (July 29, 2024 ip fray article).
What’s new: Assignment records from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicate that LG Electronics, another Avanci licensor, recently assigned several U.S. patent assets to Toyota Motor Corporation. The assigned patents appear to cover technologies relating to 4G and 5G networking (see below).
Direct impact: Given its background as an automaker, Toyota’s contribution of patents to Avanci’s pools is far smaller than established mobile players like LG and OPPO. By buying patents from LG, Toyota will presumably expand its contribution and, in turn, grow its share of pool licensing revenue. In a sense, this “offsets” some of the costs it bears as a licensee to the pools.
Wider ramifications: Looked at one way, this could be seen as a ringing endorsement of Avanci’s model. Toyota was announced as a 4G Vehicle licensee in September 2022, a 5G Vehicle licensee in October 2024, and was revealed as a licensor to both pools by October 2025. That chain of events is indicative of Toyota’s trust in Avanci and, alongside its patent purchases from OPPO and now LG, also points to a sophisticated approach on the automaker’s part as it looks to play an enhanced role on both sides of the licensor-licensee market. Over the longer term, it would not be a surprise to see other automakers follow Toyota’s lead in this regard and engage in their own mobile patent acquisition deals.
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