Qualcomm to Become Leading 4G Patent Holder

Worldwide leading communications solutions provider Qualcomm is expected to take the lead in the 4G wireless communications area when it comes to patent holding. According to a recently published report from ABI Research, the company recorded 24 percent of ETSI declarations surrounding LTE, and 16 percent of the total number of 26,000 patents that are expected to prove relevant for the 4G technology, WiMAX included.

However, the company is not the only active player when it comes to 4G patents. Other companies that are worth noting here would be Interdigital, with 18 percent patents in the LTE area, Huawei with 10 percent, LG with 9 percent, Nokia with 9 percent, and Samsung with 7 percent of the patents. On the entire 4G ecosystem, Samsung goes to the second place with 12 percent of all patents, while Nokia occupies the third position with 6 percent of the total 4G patents.

Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research, comments, “Innovation in this space continues unabated. Given that these declarations reflect work completed 18 months ago, it is very feasible that this landscape could shift again during the coming two years as we see the 4G market ramp up.” He goes on to add that, “We see no major reason why the licensing situation in 4G will be significantly different from that for 3G. There is still a big list of ‘haves’ but also a large list of ‘have-nots’. The only major change is that the list of haves has changed significantly to embrace newly active patent holders such as Samsung and Huawei.”

According to ABI Research, all of the data can be seen in its database product “LTE and WiMAX Intellectual Landscapes” research, available on its website here. The research firm also noted that it analyzed IEEE declarations of essentiality and conducted a full search of patents for OFDM, OFDMA, Beamforming, SDMA, HARQ, SC-FDMA, MIMO, and Fast Power Control. The report is part of the firm's 4G Research Service.