5G SEP Leadership in 2020

Abstract

5G cellular technology has tremendous promise, with the potential to transform a wide range of industries and to contribute to economic growth and job creation. Various 5G patent landscaping reports have been published, but there is significant disagreement between reports as to which companies and which countries are leading. This article examines the results of identifying 5G patent holdings at a company level for three companies of interest: Ericsson, Huawei and Samsung. The analysis is based on data acquired from twoBirds Pattern of Bird & Bird LLP, which has robust essentiality audit data applied. Of the companies of interest, Ericsson is in the lead, followed by Samsung and then Huawei. This article also considers other 5G reports, such as from Amplified and GreyB, observing that they are unreliable, as they typically suffer from credibility, transparency, and quality issues, or do not adjust for over-declaration in any way.

Keywords: SEPs, Standard Essential Patents, FRAND, 5G, LTE/4G, Royalty Rate Determination, Patents, Patent Valuation, Patent Landscape, Cellular, Telecommunication, Standards, ETSI, Essentiality Audits

JEL Classification: O34