5G/MEC Edge Computing Patent Landscape 2026
Samsung Electronics leads a moderately concentrated field of 4,297 patent families, with the top five filers among the hundred largest collectively holding 32% of that group’s combined total. The field is still expanding on a multi-year basis, though annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak, and activity remains dominated by digital-information-transmission and wireless-network technologies.
Samsung leads a field where the top tier holds a meaningful but not dominant share
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd ranks first with 252 patent families, followed closely by Intel Corporation at 228 patent families and. China United Network Communications Group at 121 patent families. The top five filers’ share of the hundred largest filers stands at 32%, indicating meaningful concentration without a single monopolistic player.
A clear tier gap exists between the top two applicants—Samsung and Intel, each above 200 patent families—and the next cluster of Chinese operators and universities that range from roughly 60 to 120 patent families. Below rank ten, the field disperses rapidly across telecom carriers, academic institutions, and equipment vendors.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 252 | |
| 2 | Intel Corporation | 228 | |
| 3 | China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. | 121 | |
| 4 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 104 | |
| 5 | China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | 89 | |
| 6 | NANJING UNIV OF POSTS & TELECOMM | 82 | |
| 7 | VERIZON PATENT & LICENSING INC | 73 | |
| 8 | InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. | 65 | |
| 9 | Chongqing University OF POSTS & TELECOMM | 60 | |
| 10 | Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 58 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | China Telecom Corporation Limited | 46 | |
| 12 | BEIJING UNIV OF POSTS & TELECOMM | 42 | |
| 13 | State Grid Corporation of China | 40 | |
| 14 | Sony Group Corporation | 39 | |
| 15 | ZTE Corporation | 37 | |
| 16 | IBM Corporation | 36 | |
| 17 | Apple Inc. | 35 | |
| 18 | Cisco Technology, Inc. | 34 | |
| 19 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 33 | |
| 20 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 33 |
Samsung’s and Intel’s scale signals deep vertical integration from radio access to compute infrastructure. The strong showing of Chinese state-owned operators and postal/telecom universities reflects significant government-backed R&D investment, particularly in network resource management and task offloading.
Filing counts for 2024–2026 are understated due to publication lag and should not be interpreted as a slowdown; the trend read uses the multi-year window rather than the most recent individual years. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Multi-year growth continues despite eased annual volume; core protocol classes dominate the mix
The filing trend and technology composition charts together reveal a field in sustained growth mode whose foundational protocol layers have matured while adjacent application domains remain comparatively sparse.
Annual filing trend
Annual filings rose sharply from 66 in 2017 to a peak of 711 in 2022, then eased to 622 in 2023 and 475 in 2024—figures that are substantially understated by publication lag. The three-year recent window sits 31% above the prior equivalent window, confirming multi-year expansion. The 2025 and 2026 figures should be treated as preliminary only.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04L (digital information transmission) and H04W (wireless communication networks) together account for the two largest IPC branches, reflecting the dominant focus on protocol-layer and network-management innovation. G06F (electric digital data processing) is a strong third, while G06N (AI model computing) is notably present at a lower share—signaling growing but still secondary interest in AI-at-the-edge. Branches such as G08B (signalling and alarm systems), H04N (pictorial communication), and G06V (image/video recognition) each represent a small fraction of total activity, highlighting sectors where edge-computing integration is nascent.
↗ 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.
Managing task offloading to edge servers in a mult…
A method of managing task offloading to edge servers in a multi-access edge computing (MEC) system includes receiving, by a task broker implemented at a host management level of the MEC system, a task offloading request from a UE application, analyzing, by the task broker, resource requirements of a task of the task offloading request and running a… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Application computation offloading for mobile edge… | 491 |
| 2 | Technologies for distributing gradient descent com… | 332 |
| 3 | Reinforcement learning for multi-access traffic ma… | 324 |
| 4 | Edge computing technologies for transport layer co… | 225 |
| 5 | Edge computing over disaggregated radio access net… | 205 |
| 6 | Graph neural network and reinforcement learning te… | 192 |
| 7 | 面向移动边缘计算的车联网任务卸载与资源分配策略 | 184 |
| 8 | Edge computing in satellite connectivity environme… | 163 |
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 competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
The field’s lifecycle stage, applicant concentration, co-filing ecosystem, and geographic footprint each carry distinct implications for teams deciding where to allocate edge-computing R&D budgets.
Growth stage with easing annual volume
The field is classified as Growth: the recent three-year filing window sits 31% above the prior three-year period, confirming sustained expansion on a multi-year basis. Annual volume peaked in 2022 and has eased since, though publication lag makes 2024–2026 counts unreliable as indicators of true activity. Teams entering now face an active but not yet saturated competitive environment, particularly in application-layer and AI-integrated edge use cases.
Growth · peak 2022Moderate concentration with a clear two-player lead
The top five filers among the hundred largest account for 32% of that group’s combined total, with Samsung and Intel forming a distinct upper tier. Chinese state-owned carriers and telecom universities occupy a solid second tier, while the remainder of the top 20 includes US carriers, standards bodies, and equipment vendors. This structure leaves room for focused challengers in specific sub-domains without requiring head-to-head competition with the leaders across all technology routes.
32% top-5 shareChina Mobile’s internal ecosystem dominates co-filing activity
The most active co-filing pair is China Mobile Communications Group with its own research institute (27 joint filings), followed by China Mobile with CM Chengdu Information and Communications Technology (10 filings) and China United Network Communications Group with its Zhongxun postal and telecom consulting institute (8 filings). Co-filing activity is heavily concentrated within the Chinese operator ecosystem, suggesting that cross-border or cross-sector collaborative filings remain limited and may represent a strategic gap for non-Chinese players.
Ecosystem: China MobileChina leads by volume; US and EPO cover global protection
China is the primary filing jurisdiction by a wide margin, followed by the United States and India. Europe (EPO) and WIPO (PCT) filings are present but at lower volumes, indicating that many applicants focus enforcement coverage on Asia-Pacific markets. Japan and South Korea trail substantially, despite hosting major applicants like Samsung and Sony—suggesting selective territorial strategies. Teams targeting US or European markets will find less crowding than in China.
Lead office: ChinaGo 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 |
|---|---|---|
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | China Mobile Communications Ltd. Research Institute | 27 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM Chengdu Information and Communications Technology Co., Ltd. | 10 |
| China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. | Zhongxun Postal and Telecom Consulting and Design Institute Co., Ltd. | 8 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM Xiongan Information and Communications Technology Co., Ltd. | 8 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM System Integration Co., Ltd. | 8 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM Shanghai Information and Communications Technology Co., Ltd. | 7 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM IoT Co., Ltd. | 5 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | China Mobile Communications Group Jiangsu Co., Ltd. | 5 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | China Mobile Communications Group Design Institute Co., Ltd. | 4 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | CM Zhixing Network Technology Co., Ltd. | 3 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung and Intel lead on volume; Chinese operators and universities are accelerating
The top two applicants are both hardware and platform integrators with global portfolios, while Chinese institutional filers show upward momentum that may close the gap over the next filing cycle.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd
Samsung leads the corpus with 252 patent families and a recent-period trend of +15%, indicating sustained investment rather than a holding pattern. Its technology focus is concentrated in H04L 67 (service-oriented digital transmission architectures), with secondary positions in H04L 41 (network management) and H04W 8 (wireless network data management)—a profile consistent with end-to-end MEC platform control.
families: 252Intel Corporation
Intel ranks second with 228 patent families but shows a recent-period trend of –27%, suggesting a reorientation or consolidation of its edge-computing portfolio. Its filing focus spans H04L 67, G06F 9 (processor and resource management), and H04W 28 (wireless resource management), reflecting a compute-centric approach to MEC rather than a carrier-infrastructure angle. The momentum divergence from Samsung is notable for teams tracking competitive positioning.
families: 228| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 127 | ▲ +15% |
| Intel Corporation | 69 | ▼ -27% |
| China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. | 60 | ▲ +18% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 36 | ▼ -25% |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | 32 | ▼ -27% |
| Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications | 42 | ▲ +27% |
| Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications | 31 | ▲ +24% |
| Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc. | 16 | ▼ -69% |
Under-served branches adjacent to the dominant protocol core
Several IPC classes sit at the edge of the dominant H04L/H04W core with materially lower filing density, representing areas where 5G/MEC techniques have plausible but as-yet limited patent coverage.
G08B · Signalling and alarm systems
This branch holds a small share of the corpus despite clear technical overlap with MEC-enabled real-time alerting, industrial safety monitoring, and smart-city event detection. Edge compute latency advantages are directly relevant to sub-second alarm propagation, yet filing density here is low. Teams with sensor-fusion or industrial IoT competencies could find differentiated filing space by coupling G08B subject matter with MEC offloading architectures, though the entry path requires cross-disciplinary expertise spanning both communications protocol and safety-system design.
Search this in Eureka →H04N · Pictorial communication (video and TV)
Video delivery and real-time transcoding are canonical MEC use cases, yet H04N represents a comparatively small portion of the corpus. The technical case for MEC-assisted video analytics, adaptive bitrate streaming, and ultra-low-latency live production is well established in academic literature—including among the top-cited references—but patent coverage lags. Applicants with video-processing or media-delivery backgrounds could leverage existing MEC resource-management prior art as a foundation, though the competitive relevance of this branch should be validated against standards-body activity before committing resources.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ across technology routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H04L 67 · Digital information transmission | H04W 28 · Wireless communication networks | G06F 9 · Electric digital data processing | H04W 4 · Wireless communication networks | H04L 41 · Digital information transmission |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Strong · 198 | Moderate · 47 | Emerging · 26 | Moderate · 49 | Moderate · 60 |
| Intel Corporation | Strong · 102 | Moderate · 46 | Strong · 69 | Moderate · 30 | Moderate · 44 |
| China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. | Strong · 59 | Strong · 50 | Strong · 30 | Moderate · 17 | Emerging · 11 |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | Strong · 57 | Strong · 31 | Moderate · 22 | Absent | Emerging · 9 |
| China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | Strong · 51 | Strong · 33 | Absent | Absent | Moderate · 13 |
| Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc. | Strong · 27 | Strong · 44 | Absent | Absent | Moderate · 15 |
| Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications | Absent | Strong · 52 | Strong · 31 | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 4,297 patent families globally. China is the leading filing jurisdiction, followed by the United States, India, and Europe (EPO).
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd leads with 252 patent families, ahead of Intel Corporation at 228 patent families and China United Network Communications Group at 121 patent families.
The field is classified as Growth. The recent three-year filing window is 31% above the prior three-year period. Annual volume peaked in 2022 and has eased since, but the most recent years are further understated by publication lag and do not represent a true decline.
H04L (digital information transmission) and H04W (wireless communication networks) are the two largest IPC branches, followed by G06F (electric digital data processing). G06N (AI model computing) is a growing but secondary presence.
Co-filing activity is dominated by the China Mobile group. China Mobile Communications Group and its research institute account for 27 joint filings, the most active pair in the corpus. China United Network Communications Group and its consulting institute represent the next most active cross-entity collaboration.
G08B (signalling and alarm systems) and H04N (pictorial communication / video) are among the branches with lower filing density relative to their technical relevance to edge computing. G06Q (business and commerce data processing) and H04B (transmission, general) are similarly sparse. These are observations of relative filing density, not validated commercial opportunities.
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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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