5G Conformance & OTA Testing Patent Landscape 2026
Samsung Electronics holds an overwhelming positional advantage in 5G conformance and OTA testing IP, with the top five filers collectively accounting for 85% of the hundred largest filers’ combined output. The field has reached a plateau near its 2019 peak, with annual volume eased from that high, though a handful of new entrants signal continued selective investment.
Samsung commands the field; a narrow tier-one club controls most activity
Samsung Electronics leads the applicant ranking with 699 patent families, a position more than thirteen times larger than the next-ranked filer, Apple Inc., at 53 patent families.
The top five filers — Samsung Electronics, Apple, Qualcomm, InterDigital. Patent Holdings, and Intel — together account for 85% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, indicating a highly concentrated competitive structure with a steep drop-off into the second tier.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 699 | |
| 2 | Apple Inc. | 53 | |
| 3 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 34 | |
| 4 | InterDigital Patent Holdings Inc. | 32 | |
| 5 | Intel Corporation | 22 | |
| 6 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 21 | |
| 7 | Peltbeam Inc. | 17 | |
| 8 | Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 11 | |
| 9 | Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. | 9 | |
| 10 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 9 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | ZTE Corporation | 8 | |
| 12 | Dell Products L.P. | 6 | |
| 13 | LG Electronics Inc. | 6 | |
| 14 | Intel IP Corporation | 5 | |
| 15 | Viavi Solutions Inc. | 4 | |
| 16 | NOKIA SOLUTIONS & NETWORKS OY | 4 | |
| 17 | Convida Wireless LLC | 3 | |
| 18 | Nokia Technologies Oy | 2 | |
| 19 | HFI Innovation Inc. | 2 | |
| 20 | Jiangsu College of Information Technology | 2 |
Samsung’s dominance implies that any new entrant or challenger faces not only scale disadvantage but also deep interlocking coverage across wireless network management (H04W) and general transmission (H04B), the two most densely filed IPC branches in this space.
Filing counts for 2024–2026 are subject to publication lag and should be treated as undercounts; the apparent recent softness in those years does not necessarily reflect a genuine withdrawal of R&D activity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Activity has plateaued around its 2019 high; wireless network management dominates the technology mix
The annual filing trend and the IPC technology composition together reveal a maturing field where core wireless conformance protocols are well-covered while several adjacent branches remain lightly populated.
Annual filing trend
Filings peaked in 2019 at 136 families and have since fluctuated in a narrower band, consistent with a field that has plateaued near its high-water mark. The 2024 and 2025 figures are expected to rise as late publications are indexed, so the apparent decline in those years should not be read as a real trend.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04W (Wireless communication networks) is the dominant branch by a wide margin, followed by H04B (Transmission, general) and H04L (Digital information transmission). Together these three branches account for the overwhelming share of records, while branches such as G06N (AI/computing models), H04J (Multiplex communication), and G01S (Radar, sonar and positioning) each carry fewer than 30 records, marking them as adjacent areas with comparatively sparse coverage.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Beam measurement and reporting in cellular networks
New radio (NR), also known as fifth generation (5G) radio or fifth generation long term evolution (5G LTE)) uses a measurement gap that allows for measurement on different beams, multiple frame structure and inter-radio access technology measurement. For example, in measurement on the different beams, the UE (<b>114</b>) and eNB (<b>304</b>) beam sweep… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Method and apparatus for UE signal transmission in… | 353 |
| 2 | Method and apparatus for generating beam measureme… | 191 |
| 3 | System and method of connected mode discontinuous … | 175 |
| 4 | Method and apparatus for generating cell measureme… | 141 |
| 5 | Method and apparatus for transmitting data in wire… | 137 |
| 6 | Method and apparatus for beam recovery in wireless… | 135 |
| 7 | System and method for bandwidth part operation | 124 |
| 8 | Random access procedure for beam based cell-less o… | 112 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the IP structure means for R&D investment decisions
The combination of high concentration, a maturing filing curve, and sparse adjacent branches creates a specific risk-and-opportunity map for engineers and strategists evaluating where to commit resources.
Field has plateaued near its 2019 peak
The lifecycle stage is Maturity: annual filings have plateaued near their peak, with the high-water mark reached in 2019 at 136 families. On a multi-year basis the corpus remains substantial at 949 patent families, but the easing of annual volume signals that foundational conformance and OTA test protocol IP is now largely staked out. New investment is most defensible in differentiated sub-areas rather than core protocol coverage.
Mature fieldExtreme top-end concentration; second tier is thin
The top five filers hold 85% of the hundred largest filers’ combined output, and Samsung alone accounts for 699 of the 949 total patent families in scope. The gap between Samsung (699) and Apple (53) is so large that even a sustained challenger investment program would require years to approach parity. For a new entrant, freedom-to-operate analysis around Samsung’s H04W 24 and H04B 7 clusters is a prerequisite before any product launch.
Highly concentratedCo-filing is minimal; Samsung anchors the only documented partnerships
The evidence shows two co-filing relationships: Samsung Electronics and its Beijing R&D center (Samsung Communications Technology Research, Beijing) with two joint families, and Samsung Electronics with the Indian Institute of Science with one joint family. Beyond these Samsung-anchored pairings, co-applicant activity is absent from the evidence, suggesting that cross-organization collaboration has not been a structural feature of this space and that open-innovation pathways remain largely unexplored.
Low collaborationUS and EPO lead; India is a notable emerging filing destination
The United States leads jurisdiction coverage with 357 records, followed by Europe (EPO) at 281 and WIPO (PCT) at 209. India stands out at 71 records — well ahead of China’s 31 and South Korea’s 7 — reflecting the importance of the Indian market for 5G device certification and the presence of local R&D activity including the Indian Institute of Science collaboration. Filers not yet protecting in India may be leaving a gap.
US-EU-India triangleGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Samsung Communications Technology Research (Beijing) Co., Ltd. | 2 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Indian Institute of Science | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung leads by a commanding margin; new entrants Peltbeam and InterDigital Holdings signal fresh positioning
The leader tier is unusually compressed at the top: Samsung’s 699 patent families represent more than 73% of the 949-family corpus, while all other ranked applicants are in the single or double digits. Momentum trends show Samsung still growing while most established challengers are contracting.
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics holds 699 patent families, a scale advantage no other single filer approaches. Its technology focus is concentrated in H04W 24 (wireless network monitoring/testing, 437 families), H04B 7 (MIMO and beam transmission, 362 families), and H04W 72 (resource allocation, 355 families), covering the core protocol stack for conformance and OTA testing end-to-end. With a recent-period momentum of +22% versus the prior window, Samsung is the only top filer actively expanding its position.
patent families: 699Apple Inc.
Apple ranks second with 53 patent families, focused on H04W 24 (21 families), H04B 7 (16 families), and H04W 72 (12 families) — a mix that mirrors the conformance testing stack from a device-side perspective. However, Apple’s recent-period trend is –20%, indicating a contraction in new filing activity and a possible shift toward relying on existing IP rather than building new conformance coverage.
patent families: 53| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 260 | ▲ +22% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 7 | ▼ -65% |
| Apple Inc. | 12 | ▼ -20% |
| Intel Corporation | 6 | ▼ -65% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 3 | ▼ -77% |
| Peltbeam Inc. | 11 | ▲ new entrant |
| InterDigital Patent Holdings Inc. | 10 | ▲ new entrant |
| IDAC Holdings Inc. | 5 | ▲ new entrant |
AI-driven testing, multiplexing, and positioning: under-served branches adjacent to the core
Three IPC branches sit at the edge of the dominant wireless conformance cluster with fewer than 30 records each; their technical adjacency to OTA testing makes them worth monitoring, though their sparse coverage reflects observations of relative filing density rather than validated commercial opportunity.
G06N · AI and computing models applied to conformance testing
With only 29 records, G06N is the most sparsely filed branch among those with plausible technical value in 5G testing. AI-driven anomaly detection, automated test-case generation, and machine-learning-based channel emulation are all active research directions in the standards community, yet the patent corpus barely reflects this. An entrant with expertise in ML infrastructure and 5G protocol stacks could establish early IP positions in AI-augmented OTA test automation before the field densifies.
Search this in Eureka →G01S · Radar, sonar and positioning integrated with OTA measurement
G01S carries only 11 records in this corpus despite the functional overlap between OTA antenna measurement, beam-tracking, and radar/positioning signal processing — particularly relevant for mmWave 5G and 5G-NR positioning use cases. The sparse filing suggests that cross-disciplinary teams bridging RF measurement and positioning have not yet established substantive patent positions here, leaving room for differentiated IP development in integrated test and positioning systems.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ across technology sub-routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H04W 24 · Wireless communication networks | H04B 7 · Transmission (general) | H04W 72 · Wireless communication networks | H04B 17 · Transmission (general) | H04L 5 · Digital information transmission |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Strong · 437 | Strong · 362 | Strong · 355 | Strong · 254 | Strong · 284 |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | Strong · 26 | Moderate · 7 | Strong · 14 | Moderate · 6 | Moderate · 6 |
| Apple Inc. | Strong · 21 | Strong · 16 | Strong · 12 | Moderate · 7 | Absent |
| Intel Corporation | Strong · 18 | Strong · 12 | Emerging · 3 | Strong · 16 | Moderate · 7 |
| Intel IP Corporation | Strong · 16 | Strong · 10 | Strong · 9 | Strong · 13 | Moderate · 4 |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | Strong · 15 | Moderate · 6 | Strong · 8 | Moderate · 4 | Moderate · 6 |
| InterDigital Patent Holdings Inc. | Strong · 11 | Moderate · 4 | Strong · 9 | Absent | Strong · 8 |
Frequently asked questions
The analysis covers 949 patent families. Filing activity has been recorded from 2017 onward, with a peak of 136 families in 2019 and subsequent annual volumes fluctuating in a narrower band.
Samsung Electronics is the clear leader with 699 patent families, more than thirteen times the output of the second-ranked filer, Apple Inc., at 53 patent families. Samsung’s recent-period momentum is +22%, the only top-five filer showing growth.
The United States leads with 357 records, followed by Europe (EPO) at 281 and WIPO (PCT) at 209. India is a notable fourth at 71 records, well ahead of China at 31 and South Korea at 7.
The field is assessed as Mature. Annual filings have plateaued near the 2019 peak, and the recent-window growth figure is -8%. The core conformance protocol IP is largely staked out; differentiated sub-areas offer the most defensible room for new investment.
Yes. Peltbeam Inc. and InterDigital Holdings (listed as a new entrant in the momentum data with 11 and 10 recent families respectively) have entered as new filers in the recent period. IDAC Holdings also appears as a new entrant with 5 recent families. All three show differentiated sub-class emphasis compared with the established leaders.
G06N (AI and computing models) carries only 29 records, G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) only 11, and H04J (multiplex communication) only 18, despite plausible technical adjacency to OTA and conformance testing workflows. These branches represent relatively sparse filing density compared with the dominant H04W and H04B clusters.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from PatSnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
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