Qualcomm holds the largest share of essential patents for LTE and LTE-Advanced cellular standards, while Samsung and LG are leading innovators in LTE modem technology. For LTE, Qualcomm owns 250 essential patents (32%), followed by InterDigital and others. For LTE modems, Qualcomm owns 144 patents (33%) followed by Samsung. Samsung and LG have demonstrated LTE devices and received certification. For LTE-Advanced, Qualcomm leads with 101 patents (48%) followed by LG. Key technologies include relay for coverage and carrier aggregation.

1. LTE & LTE-Advanced Patent Analysis 1Q. 2010

2. 1. LTE Essential Patent Candidates Landscape LTE Patent Landscape 2010 1Q analyzes the lists of patents declared essential to 3GPP LTE (4G Mobile Communications) appear at the ETSI IPR Online website (some of Motorola's essential patent candidates are indentified by a keyword search). The declared essential patent candidates include published patent applications and issued patents in the United States (USPTO) before March 1, 2010 (patent applications in pending are not included). Total of 786 declared essential patent candidates are used in the analysis. Analysis for the top LTE IPR shareholders shows that Qualcomm (250, 32%) is the leader followed by InterDigital (147, 19%), Nokia (94, 12%), LG (73, 9%), and Samsung (67, 9%) as of Feb. 28, 2010. Ref. Figure 1

3. Fig. 1 IPR Share for LTE Essential Patent Candidates

4. 2. LTE Essential Patent Candidates for LTE Modem LTE digital baseband for 3GPP standard specifications consists of two core parts: OFDM/MIMO Modem (TS36.211+TS36.213) and Channel Coder (TS36.212). Analysis for the top IPR shareholders for LTE baseband modem products shows that Qualcomm (144, 33%) is the leader followed by Samsung (63, 15%), Nokia (46, 11%), LG (34, 8%), and Nortel (33, 8%) as of Feb. 28, 2010. Ref. Figure 2

5. Fig. 2 IPR Share for LTE Baseband Modem Essential Patent Candidates

6. 3. LTE Modem Innovation Leader: Samsung & LG In Mobile World Congress 2010, Samsung Electronics demonstrated live video streaming via the company’s own LTE network equipment on the Samsung netbook N150. Samsung also introduced the dongle type device GT-B3710 equipped with LTE baseband modem. In recent TechIPm's analysis for LTE essential patent candidates (published patent applications and issued patents in the United States (USPTO) before March 1, 2010), Samsung ranked the second in IPR share for LTE baseband modem products. Essentiality analysis of the Samsung's LTE IPR also showed high quality of Samsung's LTE patent portfolios.

7. 3. LTE Modem Innovation Leader: Samsung & LG -2 LG Electronics recently announced that its LD100 data modem has become LTE modem device to receive Telecom Engineering Center (TELEC) certification in Japan. LG already had an approval from the FCC in the US before the TELEC certification. In recent TechIPm's analysis for LTE essential patent candidates, LG ranked 4th in IPR share for LTE baseband modem products. Essentiality analysis of the LG's LTE IPR also showed the highest quality of LG's LTE patent portfolio among IPR shareholders. Ref. Figure 3

8. Fig. 3 Samsung & LG‘s LTE Modem Innovation

9. 4. LTE Products Competitor Analysis LTE patent portfolios are researched for US market leader among LTE product manufactures. To find the key IPR holders for the LTE patents, a keyword search of the USPTO patent data base has been performed. For completeness, patent data in the lists of patents declared essential to 3GPP LTE appear at the ETSI IPR Online website is also included. As of April 10 2010, there were total of 1227 (786 patents from the ETSI IPR Online website and 441 patents form the keyword search) issued patents and published patent applications.

10. 4. LTE Patents for Products Competitor Analysis -2 The key IPR holders and their IPR share for LTE patents are as follows: 1. LTE US Patent Landscape: Qualcomm (318, 26%), InterDigital (194, 16%), LG (121, 10%), Nokia (107, 9%), Samsung (77, 6%), and Ericsson (64, 5%) 2. LTE US Patents for LTE Mobile Phone Products: LG (121), Nokia (107), Samsung (77), and Motorola (31) 3. LTE US Patents for LTE Infrastructure Products: Ericsson (64), Nortel (35), NEC (9), Alcatel-Lucent (7), NSN (7), and Huawei (4) 4. LTE US Patents for LTE Chipset Products: Qualcomm (318), TI (30), Infineon (5), and Freescale Semiconductor (4) 5. LTE US Patents for LTE Information & Computing Products: RIM (15), Sharp (10), Sony (6), Panasonic (1), and Toshiba (1) Ref. Figure 4

11. Fig. 4 Patent Landscape for LTE Products in US Market

12. 5. LTE -Advanced Patent Analysis LTE 3GPP’s LTE-Advanced is one of candidates for ITU-R's (International Telecommunication Union – Radio Communication) 4G mobile communication (IMT-Advanced) standards. The IMT-Advanced standards establishment is scheduled to be early 2011 through the expert evaluation process. To find the key IPR holders for the LTE-Advanced, a keyword search of the global patent data bases (USPTO, EPO, and WIPO (PCT)) has been performed. As of March 29 2010, the key IPR holders and their IPR share for the LTE-Advanced (total of 260 patent applications) are as follows: 1. Patent Landscape by Assignee's Country USA (133, 55%), S. Korea (37, 15%), Finland (20, 8%), Sweden (16, 7%), Canada (7, 3%), and China (7, 3%)

13. 5. LTE -Advanced Patent Analysis -2 2. Patent Landscape by Assignee Qualcomm (101, 48%), LG (33, 16%), Ericsson (17, 8%), NSN (13, 6%), AT&T Mobility (12, 6%), and Nokia (9, 4%) 3. Patent Landscape by Technology Relay technology for improving cell coverage and/or user throughput (96), SU-MIMO for improving spectrum usage efficiency (18), and Carrier Aggregation for flexible radio resource allocation (14) Ref. Figure 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4

14. Fig. 5.1 LTE-Advanced Global Patent Landscape by Patent Office

15. Fig. 5.2 LTE-Advanced Global Patent Landscape by Assignee’s Country

16. Fig. 5.3 LTE-Advanced Global Patent Landscape by Assignee

17. Fig. 5.4 LTE-Advanced Global Patent Landscape by Technology

18. 6. Mobile Heterogeneous Network Patent Landscape Mobile Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) is a key technology for 4G mobile implementation. The mobile HetNet is under standardization by 3GPP as a part of LTE-advanced standards. 3GPP’s LTE-Advanced is one of candidates for ITU-R's (International Telecommunication Union – Radio Communication) 4G mobile communication (IMT-Advanced) standards. The IMT-Advanced standards establishment is scheduled to be early 2011 through the expert evaluation process. To find the key IPR holders for the mobile HetNet, a keyword search of the global patent data bases (USPTO, EPO, JPO, and WIPO (PCT)) has been performed. As of March 31 2010, the key IPR holders and their IPR share for the mobile HetNet (total of 192 published and issued patent applications) are as follows: Samsung (16, 15%), LG (13, 12%), Matsushita Electric (9, 8%), NSN (8, 7%), NTT DoCoMo (7, 6%), Huawei (6, 6%), Qualcomm (6, 6%), Toshiba (6, 6%), Broadcom (5, 5%), Alcatel-Lucent (4, 4%), ETRI (4, 4%), Nokia (4, 4%), Ericsson (3, 3%), and Motorola (3, 3%). (Ref. Figure 6)

19. Fig. 6 Mobile Heterogeneous Network Patent Landscape

20. 7. Cognitive Radio Patent Landscape Cognitive Radio is an emerging technology for intelligent wireless communications. Cognitive Radio is able to dynamically adapt to radio environment to maximize the flexible utilization of the limited spectrum resources. To find the key IPR holders for the Cognitive Radio, a keyword search of the global patent data bases (USPTO, EPO, JPO, and WIPO (PCT)) has been performed. As of March 31 2010, the key IPR holders and their IPR share for the Cognitive Radio (total of 360 published and issued patent applications) are as follows: Motorola (49, 14%), Samsung (49, 14%), Qualcomm (28, 8%), Nokia (27, 8%), Philips (19, 5%), ETRI (15, 4%), Toshiba (14, 4%), MS (13, 4%), HONG KONG UST (12, 3%), and STMicroelectronics (11, 3%). Ref. Figure 7

21. Fig. 7 Cognitive Radio Patent Landscape