5G Network Monitoring & Self-Healing Patent Landscape
The 5G network monitoring and self-healing patent field is in a Growth stage, with the top five filers among the hundred largest applicants holding 41% of that group’s combined output, led by Samsung Electronics. The field is still expanding on a multi-year basis — recent three-year filings sitting well above the prior three-year window — though annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak and the most recent years remain undercounted due to publication lag.
Samsung leads a moderately concentrated field with a visible tier gap below the top two slots
The Massengill Family Trust at 40 and Newman David E at 31. Together, the top five filers account for 41% of the combined output of the hundred largest applicants — a moderate but meaningful concentration that leaves room for challengers.
A clear tier gap separates the top three filers (Samsung at 50, Massengill at 40, Newman at 31) from the next cluster (Huawei at 24, Microsoft at 19, Pivotal Commware at 18), and a further drop to single-digit counts begins around rank ten. This two-tier structure suggests entrenched leaders but no single dominant monopolist.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 50 | |
| 2 | The Massengill Family Trust | 40 | |
| 3 | Newman David E | 31 | |
| 4 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 24 | |
| 5 | Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | 19 | |
| 6 | Pivotal Commware Inc. | 18 | |
| 7 | Rakuten Mobile, Inc. | 13 | |
| 8 | EXFO Solutions SAS | 12 | |
| 9 | Sempre Inc. | 12 | |
| 10 | Boost SubscriberCo LLC | 9 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 8 | |
| 12 | TC France SAS | 7 | |
| 13 | NOKIA SOLUTIONS & NETWORKS OY | 6 | |
| 14 | Guavus Inc. | 6 | |
| 15 | China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. | 5 | |
| 16 | Motorola Solutions Inc. | 5 | |
| 17 | Infovista | 4 | |
| 18 | PCTEL Inc. | 4 | |
| 19 | State Grid Corporation of China | 4 | |
| 20 | Jio Platforms Ltd. | 4 |
Samsung’s position reflects a broad The Massengill Family Trust and Newman David E in the top three signals active individual-inventor and trust-held portfolio activity in this space — an unusual dynamic that R&D teams should monitor when assessing licensing risk.
Filings from 2024 onward are subject to publication lag and will be undercounted until additional records become public; treat recent-year figures as a lower bound. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Multi-year growth intact despite easing from the 2022 peak; wireless protocols dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend reveals a field that accelerated sharply between 2018 and 2022, then moderated, while the technology composition chart shows heavy concentration in wireless networking standards alongside a meaningful but smaller AI and digital-transmission layer.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew from 8 in 2018 to a peak of 91 in 2022 before easing to 71 in 2023 and 58 in 2024. The three-year recent window remains 91% above the prior equivalent window, confirming multi-year growth. The apparent decline in 2024 and the very low 2025–2026 counts reflect publication lag, not a genuine contraction; those years will fill in as records publish.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04W (Wireless communication networks) and H04L (Digital information transmission) dominate the composition by a wide margin, reflecting that monitoring and self-healing innovations are primarily expressed through wireless protocol and data-plane claims. G06N (AI models) and H04B (Transmission, general) form a secondary tier, signaling growing but still minority AI-driven approaches. All remaining IPC classes each account for a small share, leaving considerable breadth of adjacent branches with 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.
Anomaly detection for virtualized rans
To meet the stringent 5G radio access network (RAN) service requirements, layers one and two need to be processed in essentially real time. Thus, prompt anomaly detection is important to prevent negative impacts on customer experience, which is critical for mobile networks to meet the stringent service requirements. However, monitoring networks for… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Controlling C… | 230 |
| 2 | Intelligence and Learning in O-RAN for 5G and 6G C… | 95 |
| 3 | Method and apparatus for charging operations in a … | 84 |
| 4 | Utilizing machine learning to provide closed-loop … | 69 |
| 5 | Performance measurements for 5GC network functions | 51 |
| 6 | Methods, systems, kits and apparatuses for providi… | 43 |
| 7 | Identifying a cell site as a target for utilizing … | 33 |
| 8 | RF signal repeater device management for 5G wirele… | 27 |
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
Four structural dimensions — maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography — each carry distinct implications for teams deciding where to position new filings or partnership activity.
Growth stage: multi-year expansion intact, annual pace easing from 2022 peak
The lifecycle evidence places this field firmly in Growth: recent three-year filings are 91% above the prior three-year window. Annual volume peaked at 91 filings in 2022 and has moderated since, but this reflects both a natural post-peak settling and publication lag in the most recent years. Teams entering now can still establish meaningful positions before the field matures toward saturation.
Growth stageModerate concentration with a two-tier structure and active individual-inventor portfolios
The top five filers hold 41% of the hundred largest applicants’ combined output, with Samsung clearly ahead at 50 patent families. Notably, two of the top three slots belong to non-corporate filers (The Massengill Family Trust and Newman David E), creating licensing risk that is atypical for a network-technology domain. Corporate entrants in tiers two and three — Huawei, Microsoft, Pivotal Commware — show that the mid-tier remains competitive and accessible.
Moderate concentrationCo-filing activity is nascent; Samsung–Kyung Hee University and Rakuten Mobile cross-entity links are the most active pairs
Samsung Electronics co-files with Kyung Hee University (Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation) on two joint families, reflecting a research-lab-to-commercialization pipeline. Rakuten Mobile similarly co-files with Rakuten Mobile USA on two families, indicating cross-border entity coordination within the same group. Huawei and Xi’an Jiaotong University share one joint family. Overall co-filing activity is limited, suggesting the ecosystem has not yet coalesced around broad open-innovation alliances.
Early collaborationU.S. leads filing jurisdiction; China and EPO form a secondary tier; India emerging
The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed by China and Europe (EPO). India ranks fourth, ahead of WIPO PCT filings, which signals that at least some applicants view India as a priority market rather than using it only as a PCT pathway. Germany, the UK, and Israel each receive a small but notable share. This distribution suggests that enforcement and freedom-to-operate analysis should prioritize the U.S., China, and EPO at minimum.
U.S.-led geographyGo 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. | 庆熙大学校产学协力团 | 2 |
| Rakuten Mobile, Inc. | Rakuten Mobile USA LLC | 2 |
| Sempre Inc. | Q Networks LLC | 2 |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | Xi’an Jiaotong University | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung anchors the field in wireless monitoring; Huawei and Microsoft target complementary sub-domains
The top two ranked applicants by patent family count are Samsung Electronics and. The Massengill Family Trust, with sharply different technology profiles and trajectory signals worth distinguishing for competitive positioning.
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics holds 50 patent families — the largest portfolio in this corpus — concentrated in H04W 24 (wireless network monitoring), H04L 41 (network management and fault handling), and H04W 28 (resource management). Its applicant momentum trend is logged as a new entrant in the recent measurement window, indicating that the bulk of its 50 families arrived in the most recent filing period rather than being accumulated gradually, which points to a deliberate, accelerated push into this domain.
50 patent familiesHuawei Technologies
Huawei Technologies holds 24 patent families, ranking fourth overall, with focus on H04W 28 (resource and traffic management), H04L 12 (data communications networks), and H04W 24 (monitoring). However, its momentum trend shows a decline of 64% in recent filings versus the prior period, suggesting a pullback — whether strategic, regulatory, or resource-driven — that may create openings in its previously held sub-domains.
24 patent families| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 35 | ▲ new entrant |
| Newman David E | 40 | ▲ new entrant |
| MASSENGILL R KEMP | 40 | ▲ new entrant |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 4 | ▼ -64% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | 19 | ▲ new entrant |
| Pivotal Commware Inc. | 4 | ▼ -69% |
| EXFO Solutions SAS | 6 | ▼ -50% |
| Rakuten Mobile, Inc. | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches: AI-driven self-healing and antenna-layer monitoring warrant closer inspection
Several IPC branches appear at low share relative to the dominant wireless-protocol classes, suggesting areas where patent density is sparse and technical activity is plausibly relevant to 5G monitoring and self-healing functions.
G06N · AI and Machine Learning Models
G06N accounts for a small share of records despite AI being a natural enabler of closed-loop self-healing and predictive fault detection in 5G networks. The most-cited work in this corpus explicitly references machine-learning-based closed-loop management and O-RAN intelligence, confirming technical relevance. The low filing density in G06N relative to H04W suggests that AI-native self-healing claims — framed outside the wireless-protocol class — remain an under-filed angle, offering a plausible entry path for teams with ML and RAN expertise.
Search this in Eureka →H04B · Transmission (General) and H01Q · Antennas
H04B and H01Q together represent a sparse layer in this corpus, yet antenna-level monitoring and beamforming self-correction are integral to 5G performance assurance. Pivotal Commware’s portfolio — which focuses heavily on H04W 24 and H01Q — demonstrates that antenna-plane self-healing is technically tractable and already attracts some specialist filing. The relative sparsity of H01Q in the broader corpus suggests that antenna-integrated monitoring claims remain an adjacent area with limited competition from the dominant H04W-focused filers.
Search this in Eureka →Frequently asked questions
The in-scope corpus contains 402 patent families. This covers global filings from 2017 through 2026, with the most recent years undercounted due to publication lag.
Samsung Electronics holds the largest portfolio with 50 patent families, representing the top position in the applicant ranking. Its filings are concentrated in wireless network monitoring and network management IPC classes.
The field is in a Growth stage. Recent three-year filings are 91% above the prior three-year window, confirming multi-year expansion. Annual volume peaked at 91 filings in 2022 and has moderated since, though the most recent years are further understated by publication lag.
The United States is the primary jurisdiction, followed by China and Europe (EPO). India ranks fourth, ahead of WIPO PCT, suggesting it is treated as a priority market by at least a subset of applicants. Germany, the UK, and Israel each have a small but notable presence.
H04W (Wireless communication networks) and H04L (Digital information transmission) dominate by a wide margin. G06N (AI models) and H04B (Transmission, general) form a secondary tier. All remaining IPC classes each account for a small share of the corpus.
Co-filing activity is limited. The most active pairs identified are Samsung Electronics with Kyung Hee University (Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation) on two joint families, and Rakuten Mobile with Rakuten Mobile USA on two joint families. Huawei and Xi’an Jiaotong University share one joint family. Broader open-innovation alliances have not yet formed in this field.
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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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