6G Conformance & OTA Testing Patent Snapshot 2026
The 6G conformance and OTA testing patent space is nascent and highly concentrated, with Samsung Electronics holding 10 of the 11 patent families in scope. Activity emerged sharply in 2022 and the field remains in early formation, presenting both a dominant incumbent position and wide-open adjacent territory.
Samsung Electronics commands a near-monopoly position in an emerging field
Samsung Electronics ranks first with 10 patent families, followed by Fragrant Mountain Microwave Co., Ltd. with 1 — making the top five filers’ share of the ranked applicants visible in this query effectively 100%, an extraordinary concentration for any technology domain.
The gap between the leader and all other participants is near-absolute. With only two identifiable applicants across 11 total patent families in scope, there is effectively no second tier: any new entrant would be competing against a single, highly focused incumbent.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 10 | |
| 2 | Fragrant Mountain Microwave Co., Ltd. | 1 |
Samsung’s visible position implies that its portfolio likely defines the current technical baseline for 6G OTA conformance methodology. New entrants — whether equipment vendors, test-house specialists, or standards-body participants — face a well-staked evidence snapshot in wireless network power management and beam-management branches.
Filings from 2024 onward are subject to standard patent publication lag and likely undercount actual recent activity; the field may be more active than current records indicate. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Activity burst in 2022, with wireless network management as the dominant technical branch
The annual filing trend and the IPC technology composition together reveal when the field ignited and where its technical center of gravity lies.
Annual filing trend
Zero activity was recorded from 2017 through 2021; filings then surged to 6 in 2022, before settling at lower single-digit levels in 2023–2025. The 2024 and 2025 bars should be read as floors, not ceilings, due to publication lag. The 2022 spike coincides with early 6G research standardization efforts.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04W (Wireless communication networks) is the visible IPC class, reflecting emphasis on network-layer power control and resource management. H04L (Digital information transmission) and H04B (Transmission general) form a secondary layer covering signal-level and RF testing concerns. G06N (AI-based computing) appears as an emerging branch, suggesting early-stage integration of machine-learning methods into OTA test automation.
↗ 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.
Radio frequency exposure mitigation
The disclosure relates to a 5G or 6G communication system for supporting a higher data transmission rate. Methods and apparatuses for radio frequency exposure mitigation. A method for a user equipment (UE) to transmit a first channel includes receiving first information for a first downlink reference signal (DL RS) and a set of numbers of repetitions. The… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Radio frequency exposure mitigation via beam selec… | 9 |
| 2 | Radio frequency exposure mitigation | 2 |
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.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung holds 10 patent families, all filed since 2022, and is classified as a new entrant by momentum data — indicating this portfolio was built rapidly from a standing start in the OTA conformance domain. Its technology emphasis spans H04W52 (power management), H04W16 (network planning/heterogeneous networks), and H04W72 (resource allocation), pointing to a system-level approach to 6G OTA test design rather than purely RF-layer instrumentation.
families: 10Fragrant Mountain Microwave Co., Ltd.
Fragrant Mountain Microwave holds 1 patent family, also classified as a new entrant, with its single record classified under H04B17 (monitoring and testing of transmission systems). This positions the company at the RF-instrumentation layer — a technically distinct angle from Samsung’s network-protocol orientation — which may represent a more defensible niche for a smaller specialist firm.
families: 1Frequently asked questions
The current corpus contains 11 patent families in scope. This is a small but focused dataset reflecting the field’s early-formation status; all activity dates from 2022 onward.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. holds 10 of the 11 patent families in scope, making it the near-exclusive filer in this technology area. Fragrant Mountain Microwave Co., Ltd. holds the remaining family.
No filings were recorded between 2017 and 2021. Activity began in 2022 with 6 patent families filed that year, coinciding with the acceleration of early 6G research and standardization discussions globally.
Europe (EPO) leads with 6 patent records, followed by WIPO (PCT) with 3, and single records each in China and India. The EPO-first pattern aligns with ETSI’s role in European 6G standardization.
H04W (Wireless communication networks) is the visible branch, reflecting system-level network management methods. H04L (Digital information transmission) and H04B (Transmission general) form a secondary layer, with G06N (AI-based computing) appearing as the smallest but potentially significant emerging branch.
No co-applicant or co-filing relationships are detected in the current evidence. Both active applicants — Samsung Electronics and Fragrant Mountain Microwave — appear to be filing independently, suggesting proprietary rather than consortium-driven research at this stage.
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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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