6G Beamforming Patent Landscape 2026
The 6G beamforming patent field is in a growth phase, with Samsung Electronics holding an overwhelming share of the 1,032 patent families in scope and annual filing volume rising sharply since 2021. Concentration is extreme, with a thin but broadening challenger tier comprising AT&T, Nokia, and a wave of new academic and telecom entrants.
Samsung commands the field; challengers are a fraction of its scale
Samsung Electronics is the clear dominant filer, ranked first with 915 patent families — more than fifty times the output of the second-ranked applicant, AT&T Intellectual Property, which holds 18 patent families.
The top five filers collectively account for 88% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, signaling extreme concentration. Nokia Technologies (9 families), Nanjing University (5 families), and Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (5 families) form a distant second tier with no meaningful near-term challenge to Samsung’s position.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 915 | |
| 2 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 18 | |
| 3 | Nokia Technologies Oy | 9 | |
| 4 | Nanjing University | 5 | |
| 5 | SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY R&DB FOUNDATION | 5 | |
| 6 | Tejas Networks Ltd | 5 | |
| 7 | ZTE Corporation | 4 | |
| 8 | Jio Platforms Ltd | 4 | |
| 9 | Yonsei University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation | 4 | |
| 10 | Fractal Networks LLC | 3 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) | 3 | |
| 12 | CVR College of Engineering | 3 | |
| 13 | LG Electronics Inc. | 3 | |
| 14 | Symbiosis International (Deemed University) | 2 | |
| 15 | CHONGQING UNIV OF POSTS & TELECOMM | 2 | |
| 16 | Saveetha Engineering College | 2 | |
| 17 | Intel Corporation | 2 | |
| 18 | China Telecom Corporation Ltd | 2 | |
| 19 | David E. Newman | 2 | |
| 20 | UNIV OF ELECTRONICS SCI & TECH OF CHINA | 2 |
Samsung’s dominance implies that any entrant seeking freedom-to-operate must map its portfolio carefully, while challengers and new entrants have so far staked out narrow but distinct sub-routes in wireless network signaling and digital transmission.
Filing counts for 2025 and 2026 are understated due to standard patent publication lag; the apparent plateau in those years should not be read as a slowdown. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filings accelerated sharply from 2021; wireless transmission dominates the technology mix
Two complementary views — annual filing volume and IPC technology composition — reveal both the pace of market formation and the degree of technical concentration within the field.
Annual filing trend
Annual filings were negligible through 2020 (fewer than 10 per year), then surged from 27 in 2021 to a recorded high of 322 in 2023. The 2024 figure of 298 and 2025 figure of 185 are subject to upward revision as publications clear the lag period; the growth trajectory across the multi-year window remains strongly positive.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04B (Transmission, general) spans the entire corpus, with H04W (Wireless communication networks) and H04L (Digital information transmission) covering the bulk of records. AI-related computing (G06N) and antenna design (H01Q) appear at notably lower counts, marking them as adjacent rather than core branches in the current filing landscape.
↗ 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.
Methods and apparatus relating to beam management
The disclosure relates to a 5G or 6G communication system for supporting a higher data transmission rate. A method for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML)-based beam management in a mobile communications system comprising a User Equipment (UE) and a network, the method comprising: prioritizing, based on an inference from a beam management AI/ML… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Facilitating sparsity adaptive feedback in the del… | 21 |
| 2 | Method and apparatus for monitoring and reporting … | 18 |
| 3 | Method and device for RIS automatic setup | 18 |
| 4 | Method and device for performing improved beam tra… | 12 |
| 5 | Facilitating sparsity adaptive feedback in the del… | 12 |
| 6 | Facilitating sparsity adaptive feedback in the del… | 12 |
| 7 | 一种基于深度强化学习的RIS辅助MU-MISO通信系统智能波束成形方法 | 11 |
| 8 | Method and device for beam failure recovery of net… | 10 |
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 patent structure means for R&D strategy
The combination of rapid growth, extreme concentration, and a thin challenger tier shapes distinct strategic implications across maturity, market structure, ecosystem development, and geography.
Growth stage with filing volume still climbing
The lifecycle evidence classifies 6G beamforming as a Growth-stage field. Annual filings remained near zero through 2020 and have risen sharply since 2021, with recent years understated by publication lag. Entrants can still influence the direction of the standard rather than merely designing around an established corpus.
Growth stageOne dominant player; genuine competition is nascent
The top five filers hold 88% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, with Samsung alone accounting for the vast majority. AT&T (18 families) and Nokia (9 families) are the closest institutional challengers, but the tier gap is substantial. New entrants — notably Jio Platforms, ZTE, and several universities — are filing but at single-digit family counts.
Highly concentratedSamsung anchors all observed co-filing activity
Every documented co-applicant pair features Samsung Electronics as one party. The most active collaboration links Samsung with Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (4 co-filings), Yonsei University’s industry-academic foundation (3 co-filings), and Samsung’s own Beijing R&D center (3 co-filings). A second Yonsei University entity also appears with 2 co-filings. No independent collaboration clusters exist outside Samsung’s orbit in the current evidence.
Samsung-centric ecosystemPCT and EPO lead; US and India are secondary filing offices
WIPO (PCT) is the leading filing jurisdiction with 383 records, followed closely by Europe (EPO) at 356 records, indicating a strategy oriented toward broad international protection. The United States ranks third at 136 records and India fourth at 88 records — a notable position that likely reflects the active Indian telecom and engineering-college filer community visible in the applicant list. China and South Korea trail at 46 and 14 records respectively.
PCT-led, global scopeGo 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. | Seoul National University R&DB Foundation | 4 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Yonsei University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation | 3 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Samsung Research China – Beijing | 3 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Yonsei University Industry Foundation | 2 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung Electronics leads decisively; Nokia and AT&T are the nearest institutional challengers
The applicant ranking reveals a single dominant player separated from challengers by an order of magnitude, with momentum data showing Samsung accelerating while AT&T retreats.
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics holds 915 patent families in 6G beamforming and shows a trajectory of 33× recent-period filings versus the prior three-year window, indicating a sustained and accelerating commitment. Its technology emphasis spans the full transmission stack: H04B 7 (general transmission), H04W 72 (wireless network resource management), and H04L 5 (multi-carrier digital transmission). Co-filings with Seoul National University and Yonsei University suggest active engagement with Korean academic research pipelines.
families: 915Nokia Technologies
Nokia Technologies holds 9 patent families and is classified as a new entrant by momentum data, indicating its 6G beamforming activity is a recent development. Its filings concentrate on H04B 7 (transmission), H04L 5 (digital transmission), and H04W 72 (wireless networks) — a technology profile that mirrors the core corpus but at a fraction of Samsung’s volume. Nokia’s established standards body influence gives it potential relevance beyond its raw family count.
families: 9| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 721 | ▲ 33× vs prior 3-yr |
| AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | 3 | ▼ -80% |
| Nokia Technologies Oy | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
| Nanjing University | 5 | ▲ new entrant |
| Tejas Networks Ltd | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| Jio Platforms Ltd | 4 | ▲ new entrant |
| ZTE Corporation | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| Seoul National University R&DB Foundation | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
AI models and antenna design are under-served relative to the transmission core
Two IPC branches sit at notably lower filing densities than the dominant transmission classes, representing areas where the intellectual property landscape is sparse and where technical demand is nonetheless plausible for 6G systems.
G06N · AI and machine-learning models
With 95 records against a corpus dominated by transmission and wireless-network classes at the thousands level, AI model techniques are an adjacent branch with limited dedicated coverage. Beamforming optimization using deep reinforcement learning and neural-network channel prediction are active research areas — one top-cited document in the corpus specifically addresses deep reinforcement learning for RIS-assisted beamforming — yet dedicated patent filings remain sparse. Teams with AI-native expertise and a 6G systems background could find entry paths here, though the thinness of filings may also reflect that current work is embedded within broader system claims rather than isolated in G06N.
Search this in Eureka →H01Q · Antenna design and arrays
H01Q covers antenna elements and arrays — the physical hardware layer underlying any beamforming system — yet appears in only 26 records within this corpus. For 6G, which targets sub-terahertz and terahertz bands requiring novel antenna geometries, this sparsity is notable. Organizations with antenna hardware expertise (materials, array calibration, near-field compensation) may find this an entry point that complements rather than directly confronts Samsung’s software-and-protocol-heavy portfolio. Entry paths include reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) antenna structures and integrated circuit-antenna co-design for mmWave and THz bands.
Search this in Eureka →How leading filers differ by technology sub-route
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H04B 7 · Transmission (general) | H04W 72 · Wireless communication networks | H04L 5 · Digital information transmission | H04W 24 · Wireless communication networks | H04B 17 · Transmission (general) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Strong · 915 | Strong · 550 | Strong · 497 | Moderate · 259 | Moderate · 191 |
| AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. | Strong · 18 | Moderate · 6 | Strong · 11 | Absent | Moderate · 6 |
| Nokia Technologies Oy | Strong · 9 | Strong · 6 | Strong · 6 | Strong · 5 | Absent |
| Tejas Networks Ltd | Strong · 5 | Strong · 3 | Moderate · 2 | Strong · 4 | Absent |
| Nanjing University | Strong · 5 | Moderate · 2 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 3 |
| ZTE Corporation | Strong · 4 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 3 | Absent |
| Jio Platforms Ltd | Strong · 4 | Absent | Strong · 3 | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus contains 1,032 patent families in scope across the global 6G beamforming field, spanning filings from 2017 through 2026.
Samsung Electronics is the dominant filer with 915 patent families, far ahead of the second-ranked applicant, AT&T Intellectual Property, which holds 18 patent families. The top five filers account for 88% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total.
Meaningful filing activity began in 2019 (7 families) and 2020 (10 families), then accelerated sharply from 27 in 2021 to 156 in 2022 and 322 in 2023. The 2024 and 2025 figures are subject to upward revision due to publication lag.
WIPO (PCT) leads with 383 records, followed by Europe (EPO) at 356 records, the United States at 136 records, and India at 88 records. This PCT-and-EPO-first pattern indicates that leading filers are pursuing broad international protection rather than concentrating in a single national office.
Two branches stand out as under-served relative to the dominant transmission classes. G06N (AI and machine-learning models) has 95 records and H01Q (antenna design and arrays) has 26 records, both notably lower than the core H04B, H04W, and H04L classes. These represent adjacent areas with plausible technical relevance to 6G beamforming.
All documented co-filing activity in the corpus involves Samsung as one party. Its most active co-applicant relationships are with Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (4 joint filings), Yonsei University’s industry-academic cooperation foundation (3 joint filings), and Samsung’s Beijing R&D center (3 joint filings). A second Yonsei University entity accounts for 2 additional co-filings.
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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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