Huawei, Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson continue to dominate $15 billion 5G licensing market: LexisNexis 5G SEP rankings

Context:

• ip fray does not endorse any particular ranking, report, or patent court, nor is anything in here meant to imply that top-down is the preferred valuation method for standard-essential patents (SEPs). We place greater emphasis on the performance of key SEP holders in litigation. There is a plurality of opinions out there, however, and it is our responsibility to report on what the market is interested in.
• Every year, LexisNexis issues a report entitled “Who Is Leading the 5G Patent Race?” that provides an analysis of the companies, economics, and trends driving the 5G patent space. The report includes a ranking of the companies that are leading that race based on both the size of their 5G patent portfolios and the value of those portfolios, based on the Patent Asset Index – an in-house tool that quantitatively measures the innovative strength of a single entity or across a broader technology field – as well as relevant 3GPP contributions.

What’s new: Huawei, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Ericsson continued to lead the global ranking of 5G patent powerhouses, LexisNexis’s latest version of “Who Is Leading the 5G Patent Race?” has revealed. Published today, the report examined leadership across granted and active 5G patent family declarations, value-adjusted portfolio indicators, and technical contributions to the 3GPP standardization process. According to the report, the global 5G patent landscape continues to be dominated by major patent holders whose standard-essential patents (SEP) underpin an estimated $15 billion annual 5G licensing market.

Direct impact: The report also shows that the top 50 5G patent owners come from a wide range of geographies, but that Chinese businesses continue to dominate, with 14 in the rankings. They are tailed by SEP owners in Japan (9), the U.S. (9), Europe (7), Taiwan (5), South Korea (5), and Canada (1).

Wider ramifications: LexisNexis also issued a few key considerations for players in the 5G space based on the data, including that SEP holders are increasingly aggressive in monetizing and enforcing their portfolios in this “high-stakes” 5G environment, and that while the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) oversees the largest cellular patent declaration database, data quality issues can underrepresent certain 5G portfolios. “Validated, comprehensive databases are critical for accurate, data-driven licensing and portfolio management,” the company said.