Ericsson, the world's largest wireless infrastructure manufacturer, claims to have 25 percent of the essential patents to Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, making the vendor the single largest IPR hold in LTE.
Ericsson claims contradict a survey from Informa regarding essential IPR holders. Informa estimates Ericsson is much lower in the IPR ranking, behind Qualcomm, InterDigital, Samsung and Huawei in total patents. When it comes to essential patents, Ericsson ranked even lower.
Ericsson chief IPR officer Kasim Alfalahi said that any conclusion that has Ericsson near the end in essential patents is wrong. He said that many studies have relied on keyword searches in the global patent application databases, which could reveal any idea related to LTE, regardless of whether the patent is key to the standard, Alfalahi told Connected Planet. The other method researchers us is to tally up the number of patent applications for LTE submitted globally, which in turn produces results more directly related to LTE but can be inflated because vendors are essentially submitting the same application to make their IPR portfolios look larger.
"From our perspective, at this time the only valid way to make a judgment is to see what companies have contributed to the standards and which technologies have been adopted," Alfalahi said.
As such, Ericsson believes it holds nearly 24 percent of awarded essential patents for LTE. Informa estimated that Ericsson holds about 7 percent.
For more:
- see this Connected Planet article
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