5G URLLC Link Reliability Patent Landscape 2026
Samsung Electronics holds a structurally dominant position in 5G URLLC and link-reliability patents, with the wireless-network and digital-transmission branches accounting for the overwhelming majority of filings. The field reached its annual-volume peak around 2020 and has since plateaued, signalling a maturing standard ecosystem where differentiation is shifting toward adjacent technical areas.
Samsung leads a highly concentrated field; the top five filers hold 70% of activity among the hundred largest filers
Samsung Electronics sits at the apex of this landscape, holding 5,740 patent families — more than four times the nearest rival, Qualcomm (1,314 patent families). The top five applicants together account for 70% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, a level of concentration rarely seen even in standards-driven wireless technologies.
A clear tier gap separates Samsung and Qualcomm from the remainder. Apple (633 patent families), AT&T Intellectual Property (405 patent families), and InterDigital. Patent Holdings (403 patent families) form a distant second tier, with everyone below that separated by further stepwise drops. This structure indicates that the field is effectively controlled by a small number of vertically integrated device and chip makers, supplemented by a handful of standards-licensing specialists.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 5,740 | |
| 2 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 1,314 | |
| 3 | Apple Inc. | 633 | |
| 4 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 405 | |
| 5 | InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. | 403 | |
| 6 | Intel Corporation | 328 | |
| 7 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 301 | |
| 8 | Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson | 247 | |
| 9 | Nokia Technologies Oy | 224 | |
| 10 | The Massengill Family Trust | 196 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | David E. Newman | 155 | |
| 12 | LG Electronics Inc. | 152 | |
| 13 | T-Mobile US, Inc. | 111 | |
| 14 | MediaTek Inc. | 108 | |
| 15 | Boost SubscriberCo LLC | 96 | |
| 16 | NVIDIA Corporation | 83 | |
| 17 | KT Corporation | 74 | |
| 18 | Sharp Corporation | 74 | |
| 19 | Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. | 73 | |
| 20 | AT&T MOBILITY II LLC | 65 |
Samsung’s position implies that any new entrant or challenger must either carve out a technically differentiated niche — such as AI-driven scheduling or advanced coding — or accept an operating environment shaped by licensing terms set by the top two players. Challengers in the second tier retain meaningful but narrower freedom to operate, particularly in application-layer and network-management sub-areas.
Filings from 2024 onward reflect publication lag and should be treated as incomplete; the apparent drop in those years does not represent a real decline in inventive activity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Annual volume plateaued after a 2020 peak; wireless-network IP classes dominate the technology mix
The filing trend and technology-composition charts together show a field that expanded rapidly from 2017 to 2020 and has since stabilised, with H04W (wireless communication networks) and H04L (digital information transmission) jointly accounting for the vast majority of classified records.
Annual filing trend
Filings climbed from 921 records in 2017 to a peak of 1,852 in 2020, then oscillated in the 1,393–1,674 band through 2023. The 2024 and 2025 figures (1,205 and 680 respectively) and the near-zero 2026 count (97) reflect publication lag and should not be read as further decline. The multi-year window shows a field that has plateaued near its peak rather than contracting.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04W (wireless communication networks) leads with 11,115 records, followed by H04L (digital information transmission) at 8,554. H04B (transmission general) is a distant third at 1,876. Lower-share branches — H03M (coding and code conversion, 348), G06N (AI models, 324), H04J (multiplex communication, 233), and G06F (digital data processing, 199) — together represent a small slice of total activity, marking them as relatively under-served relative to the core wireless classes.
↗ 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.
Systems and methods for supporting urllc service i…
A 5G new radio (NR) Base Station (gNB) is described. The gNB includes a processor and memory in electronic communication with the processor. Instructions stored in the memory are executable to receive one or more indications for data availability generated by an ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC)-based logical channel group (LCG) in a 5G NR… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connecting to Virtualized Mobile Core Networks | 395 |
| 2 | Communication method and apparatus using beamforming | 367 |
| 3 | Method and device for transmitting or receiving gr… | 315 |
| 4 | Resource management for 5g ev2x | 311 |
| 5 | Method and apparatus for managing user plane opera… | 276 |
| 6 | 5g network slicing with distributed ledger traceab… | 236 |
| 7 | Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Controlling C… | 230 |
| 8 | User equipment and methods for PDCP duplication in… | 225 |
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 landscape structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural observations — maturity, concentration, collaboration patterns, and geographic spread — define the strategic context for teams deciding where to allocate R&D effort in 5G URLLC and link-reliability technology.
Field is at Maturity: annual volume plateaued near its 2020 peak
The lifecycle stage is Maturity, with annual filings having plateaued near their 2020 peak of 1,852 records. The recent-window growth rate is -7%, consistent with a standards-driven technology whose core protocol layer has largely been defined. R&D investment is best focused on application-layer extensions and adjacent technical branches rather than on core physical-layer URLLC mechanisms already densely covered.
Lifecycle: MaturityExtreme concentration: Samsung and Qualcomm dominate with limited peer challenge
The top five filers account for 70% of output among the hundred largest filers, and Samsung alone holds 5,740 patent families — more than four times Qualcomm’s 1,314. This concentration compresses freedom-to-operate for entrants in the core H04W/H04L space. Targeted differentiation in lower-density branches such as AI-driven reliability (G06N) or advanced coding (H03M) offers more viable entry points.
High concentrationAT&T and Samsung drive the most active co-filing relationships
The most active co-filing pair is AT&T Intellectual Property and AT&T Mobility II (57 joint families), reflecting intra-group portfolio coordination. Samsung Electronics co-files with multiple Korean university partners — Sungkyunkwan University (16 families), Pohang University of Science and Technology (6 families), Yonsei University (6 families), KAIST (5 families), and Seoul National University R&D Business Foundation (5 families) — indicating a deliberate university-linkage strategy for early-stage research. Nokia Technologies and Nokia USA account for 10 joint families.
University-linked R&DUS leads filing activity; EPO, China, and PCT routes form the secondary protection tier
The United States is the leading jurisdiction with 4,851 records, followed by the EPO (2,663), China (1,809), and WIPO/PCT (1,742). India at 1,007 records is notably active for an emerging market, reflecting the strategic importance of its 5G rollout. Japan (209) and South Korea (42) are comparatively low given the prominence of Japanese and Korean applicants, suggesting selective national-filing strategies by those companies.
US-centric with EPO/China tierGo 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 |
|---|---|---|
| AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | AT&T移动第二有限责任公司 | 57 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 成均馆大学校产学协力团 | 16 |
| Nokia Technologies Oy | Nokia USA Inc. | 10 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Samsung Research China – Beijing | 8 |
| AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | AT&T TECHNICAL SERVICES CO INC | 7 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 浦项工科大学校产学协力团 | 6 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 延世大学校产学协力团 | 6 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | 5 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Seoul National University R&D Business Foundation | 5 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) | 3 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung Electronics leads by a wide margin; Qualcomm is the only scaled challenger
The applicant ranking is characterised by a single dominant player and a set of challengers whose combined volume still falls well short of the leader. Momentum data reveal divergent trajectories: Samsung is accelerating while most peers are contracting.
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics holds 5,740 patent families, the largest position in the corpus by a substantial margin. Its technology emphasis spans H04W 72 (wireless resource scheduling, 2,581 records), H04L 1 (error control and reliability, 2,457 records), and H04W 24 (network monitoring and testing, 2,035 records) — covering the full URLLC stack. Momentum is strongly positive at +41% in the recent period, making Samsung the only top-tier player actively expanding its position. Co-filing with multiple Korean universities reinforces an early-stage pipeline.
patent families: 5,740Qualcomm
Qualcomm holds 1,314 patent families, the second-largest position, with its strongest concentration in H04L 1 (error control, 801 records), H04W 72 (resource scheduling, 606 records), and H04L 5 (channel multiplexing, 581 records). This emphasis on physical-layer reliability aligns with its chip-design business. However, its recent-period momentum is -78%, indicating a sharp reduction in new filings that may reflect portfolio rationalisation or a shift toward licensing existing IP rather than building new families.
patent families: 1,314| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 2,525 | ▲ +41% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 137 | ▼ -78% |
| Apple Inc. | 144 | ▼ -59% |
| AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | 67 | ▼ -74% |
| Intel Corporation | 138 | ▼ -17% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 54 | ▼ -57% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson | 77 | ▼ -10% |
| Nokia Technologies Oy | 18 | ▼ -72% |
Under-served branches in coding, AI, and multiplexing adjacent to the core URLLC space
Five IPC classes with materially lower activity sit adjacent to the dominant H04W/H04L core. Two of them — G06N (AI models) and H03M (coding and code conversion) — combine relative sparsity with plausible technical relevance to reliability improvement and may warrant closer evaluation by R&D teams.
G06N · AI Models for Link Reliability
G06N (computing based on AI models) accounts for only 324 records — roughly 1% of classified activity — despite AI-driven scheduling and predictive retransmission being active research themes in the academic literature. The sparse patent footprint suggests that AI-native approaches to URLLC (e.g., reinforcement-learning-based resource allocation or neural-network channel prediction) are not yet densely claimed. Teams with AI/ML competencies could build positions here with relatively low overlap risk against established portfolios, though the entry path requires crossing both wireless-protocol and ML-systems expertise.
Search this in Eureka →H03M · Coding and Code Conversion
H03M (coding and code conversion) holds 348 records — also approximately 1% of activity — notwithstanding the central role of channel coding (polar codes, LDPC) in 5G reliability guarantees. The low count likely reflects that most coding-related URLLC IP is classified under H04L rather than H03M; however, the H03M space itself remains sparse and could accommodate focused work on ultra-low-latency decoding architectures or adaptive coding schemes for industrial IoT. Entry is technically demanding but the density of direct competitors in this specific branch is low based on current evidence.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ by technology sub-class emphasis
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H04L 1 · Digital information transmission | H04W 72 · Wireless communication networks | H04W 24 · Wireless communication networks | H04W 28 · Wireless communication networks | H04L 5 · Digital information transmission |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Strong · 2,457 | Strong · 2,581 | Strong · 2,035 | Strong · 1,494 | Strong · 1,692 |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | Strong · 801 | Strong · 606 | Moderate · 306 | Moderate · 229 | Strong · 581 |
| Apple Inc. | Strong · 218 | Strong · 213 | Strong · 214 | Strong · 110 | Strong · 150 |
| AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. | Strong · 125 | Strong · 124 | Strong · 155 | Strong · 120 | Moderate · 66 |
| Intel Corporation | Strong · 120 | Strong · 157 | Strong · 105 | Strong · 81 | Strong · 106 |
| InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. | Strong · 85 | Strong · 81 | Strong · 58 | Absent | Strong · 46 |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | Strong · 93 | Absent | Strong · 75 | Strong · 79 | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 12,664 patent families in scope globally. The United States is the leading jurisdiction by record count (4,851 records), followed by Europe via the EPO (2,663) and China (1,809).
Samsung Electronics is the leading applicant with 5,740 patent families — more than four times the second-ranked Qualcomm, which holds 1,314 patent families. The top five applicants together account for 70% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers.
The field is at the Maturity stage. Annual filings peaked at 1,852 records in 2020 and have plateaued since. The recent-window growth rate is -7%, consistent with a standards-driven technology whose core protocol definitions are largely complete.
H04W (wireless communication networks) leads with 11,115 records and H04L (digital information transmission) follows at 8,554 records. H04B (transmission general) is a distant third at 1,876 records. These three classes represent the overwhelming majority of classified activity.
The most active co-filing pair is AT&T Intellectual Property and AT&T Mobility II with 57 joint patent families, reflecting intra-group coordination. Samsung Electronics is the most active cross-institutional collaborator, co-filing with Sungkyunkwan University (16 families), Pohang University of Science and Technology (6 families), Yonsei University (6 families), KAIST (5 families), and Seoul National University R&D Business Foundation (5 families).
G06N (AI models, 324 records) and H03M (coding and code conversion, 348 records) each represent approximately 1% of classified activity despite their technical relevance to link reliability. H04J (multiplex communication, 233 records) and G06F (digital data processing, 199 records) are similarly sparse relative to the dominant wireless-network classes.
Map your own 5G reliability patent landscape
Join 18,000+ innovators using PatSnap Eureka to map any technology landscape: search 2B+ patents and papers, surface key assignees, and generate a report like this in minutes.
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.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. PatSnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.