6G IoT mMTC Patent Landscape in 2026
The 6G IoT / mMTC patent field is in active growth, with Samsung Electronics commanding an overwhelming share and Europe (EPO) serving as the primary filing jurisdiction. The competitive structure is highly concentrated among the hundred largest filers, though new entrants have surged since 2022, signaling a rapidly expanding but still Samsung-anchored ecosystem.
Samsung leads a highly concentrated field with a widening gap over challengers
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd sits atop the applicant ranking with 427 patent families, a position that dwarfs every other filer in the space and establishes it as the clear technology leader in 6G IoT / mMTC.
The top five filers collectively account for 93% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers — a concentration level that leaves very little competitive headroom for second-tier players. The Massengill Family Trust and Newman David E occupy the second and third positions, each with a fraction of Samsung’s volume.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics Co Ltd | 427 | |
| 2 | The Massengill Family Trust | 36 | |
| 3 | Newman David E | 29 | |
| 4 | Tejas Networks Ltd | 4 | |
| 5 | AT&T MOBILITY II LLC | 3 | |
| 6 | BEIJING SAMSUNG TELECOM R&D CENT | 3 | |
| 7 | AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P | 3 | |
| 8 | Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 2 | |
| 9 | Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 10 | A Venugopal Rao | 1 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Canara Engineering College | 1 | |
| 12 | Medicaps University | 1 | |
| 13 | B Persis Urbana Ivy | 1 | |
| 14 | Massengill R Kemp | 1 | |
| 15 | Dr S Rajalakshmi | 1 | |
| 16 | B Ranjitha | 1 | |
| 17 | Dr Shailesh Pramod Bendale | 1 | |
| 18 | Nokia Technologies Oy | 1 | |
| 19 | Prof Dr R Swaminathan | 1 | |
| 20 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 1 |
Samsung’s dominance implies that core physical-layer and resource-management innovations are already well-staked; challengers entering this space will need to differentiate either by application vertical or by targeting adjacent technical branches where Samsung’s coverage is thinner.
Filings from approximately 2025 onward are likely under-counted due to standard patent publication lag; the apparent moderation in 2025–2026 figures should not be interpreted as a slowdown. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing volume has surged since 2022 and the technology mix is dominated by wireless networking standards
Two charts capture the structural dynamics of the field: an annual filing trend that reveals the timing and pace of the growth wave, and a technology-composition view that shows where technical effort is being concentrated.
Annual filing trend
Activity was negligible through 2021, then jumped sharply in 2022 and has continued climbing through 2024. The 2025 and 2026 bars are materially under-counted due to publication lag and should not be read as a plateau or decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H04W (Wireless communication networks) covers the entire corpus, confirming that air-interface and network-layer inventions are the backbone of the field. H04L (Digital information transmission) and H04B (Transmission, general) form a strong secondary layer, while IoT-specific branches such as G16Y and AI-adjacent G06N hold only minimal shares, suggesting those application layers remain sparsely patented relative to the connectivity substrate.
↗ 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.
Resource allocation and frame structure of ambient…
This invention introduces an energy-efficient communication protocol for Ambient IoT, integrating Slotted ALOHA with RF energy harvesting to enable reliable interaction between ultra-low-power, battery-less devices and 5G/6G base stations or relay UEs. Devices first harvest energy from a Carrier Wave (CW) signal, followed by a structured five-message… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Method and apparatus for resource allocation in ti… | 22 |
| 2 | Method and device for repeatedly transmitting down… | 19 |
| 3 | Method and apparatus for configuring beam in wirel… | 15 |
| 4 | Method and apparatus for transmitting and receivin… | 13 |
| 5 | Method and apparatus of communication for reduced-… | 11 |
| 6 | Method and apparatus for transmitting/receiving up… | 11 |
| 7 | Method and apparatus for transmitting uplink chann… | 10 |
| 8 | Method and device for HARQ-ACK feedback transmissi… | 9 |
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 investment decisions
The combination of explosive growth, extreme concentration, and thin coverage in application-layer branches creates a mixed picture: core radio-access technology is heavily contested, while adjacent verticals remain largely open.
Growth stage — annual filings still rising from a near-zero base
The lifecycle stage is confirmed as Growth, with annual filings still rising and the most recent years understated by publication lag. The field effectively began in 2022, meaning most foundational IP positions are fewer than four years old — early enough that a well-targeted entrant can still establish a meaningful portfolio before standards lock in.
Growth stageExtreme top-5 dominance leaves limited room at the core
The top five filers hold 93% of the hundred largest filers’ combined output, with Samsung alone accounting for the vast majority. Engineers evaluating entry should assume the core H04W72 resource-allocation and H04L5 multi-carrier spaces are already densely filed by Samsung. Differentiation via application-specific claims or adjacent IPC branches is the more viable path for new entrants.
High concentrationIntra-group co-filing is the primary collaboration pattern observed
The most active co-filing pairs are Samsung Electronics with Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center (3 joint families) and AT&T Mobility II LLC with AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (3 joint families). Both patterns reflect intra-corporate coordination rather than cross-industry alliances. No cross-company or academic collaborative filings are evident at meaningful scale, indicating the ecosystem has not yet developed broad open-innovation structures.
Intra-group onlyEurope and WIPO lead; Asia filing is modest except India
Europe (EPO) is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed closely by WIPO (PCT) and the United States. India is the fourth-largest jurisdiction, reflecting a cluster of individual and academic filers. China holds a comparatively small share despite being home to major wireless players, which may indicate a filing-strategy gap or scope limitation in this corpus. R&D teams seeking broad protection should prioritize EPO and PCT routes.
EPO-led coverageGo 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 | Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center | 3 |
| AT&T移动第二有限责任公司 | AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | 3 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Samsung dominates on resource management; challengers cluster in scheduling and mobility
The leader-challenger gap in this field is unusually wide, with Samsung operating in a separate tier. Second-tier players are distinguished more by their entry timing and technical sub-focus than by scale.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
Samsung holds 427 patent families and is classified as a new entrant on momentum, reflecting that its entire position was built since 2022. Its technical focus is concentrated in H04W72 (resource allocation, 374 records), H04L5 (multi-carrier transmission, 198 records), and H04L1 (error control, 118 records) — the exact sub-classes that underpin 6G NR air-interface design for massive machine-type communications. The Beijing Samsung R&D center co-files on a subset of these, extending geographic reach.
patent families: 427Newman David E
Newman David E holds 29 patent families and is also classified as a new entrant, with 36 recent-period filings indicating an accelerating output rate. Technical emphasis mirrors the field’s dominant sub-classes: H04W72 (23 records), H04L5 (17 records), and H04W48 (channel access and scheduling, 14 records). The Massengill Family Trust holds 36 patent families with an identical technical profile, suggesting these two independents may be working in the same technical space and warrant monitoring as potential licensing entities.
patent families: 29| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co Ltd | 322 | ▲ new entrant |
| Newman David E | 36 | ▲ new entrant |
| Massengill R Kemp | 36 | ▲ new entrant |
| Tejas Networks Ltd | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| AT&T移动第二有限责任公司 | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| AT&T知识产权一部有限合伙公司 | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
Multiplex communication and IoT data processing are under-served relative to the core
Within the 6G IoT / mMTC corpus, a small number of IPC branches sit at the periphery of the dominant H04W / H04L activity. These observations of relative sparsity are worth noting for teams evaluating technical differentiation, though they are not validated commercial opportunities without further market analysis.
H04J · Multiplex communication
H04J holds only 5 records and a 1% share within the corpus — the sole branch flagged as under-served in the white-space analysis. Multiplexing schemes (OFDM variants, NOMA, and candidate 6G waveforms) are technically central to mMTC uplink design for massive device counts, yet patent coverage here is thin relative to the scheduling and channel-coding sub-classes. An entrant with novel multiplexing architectures could build a differentiated position with limited immediate overlap against the dominant filers.
Search this in Eureka →G16Y · IoT data processing
G16Y, the dedicated IoT data-processing class, holds only 3 records in the corpus, despite mMTC being inherently an IoT connectivity standard. This sparsity reflects that current filings are concentrated on the air-interface layer rather than on device-side data handling, semantic communication, or IoT platform integration. Teams working on end-to-end IoT system patents — covering data aggregation, low-power processing pipelines, or application-layer protocols for 6G-connected sensors — face a relatively open landscape in this branch.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology sub-class emphasis
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | H04W 72 · Wireless communication networks | H04L 5 · Digital information transmission | H04L 1 · Digital information transmission | H04B 7 · Transmission (general) | H04W 4 · Wireless communication networks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co Ltd | Strong · 374 | Strong · 198 | Moderate · 118 | Moderate · 97 | Emerging · 52 |
| Massengill R Kemp | Strong · 23 | Strong · 17 | Emerging · 1 | Absent | Moderate · 7 |
| Newman David E | Strong · 23 | Strong · 17 | Emerging · 1 | Absent | Moderate · 7 |
| Tejas Networks Ltd | Strong · 4 | Absent | Moderate · 1 | Absent | Absent |
| Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center | Strong · 3 | Moderate · 1 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| AT&T Intellectual Property I LP | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Strong · 3 |
| AT&T Mobility II LLC | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Strong · 3 |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 490 patent families. Filing activity was negligible before 2022 and has grown sharply since, making this a young but fast-moving field.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd leads with 427 patent families. The next-largest filer, The Massengill Family Trust, holds 36 patent families — a gap of nearly twelve to one. The top five filers together account for 93% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total.
Europe (EPO) is the top jurisdiction, followed by WIPO (PCT) and the United States. India is the fourth-largest jurisdiction. China holds a comparatively small share in this corpus. Teams seeking broad international protection should prioritize EPO and PCT routes.
The field is classified as Growth, with annual filings still rising. The most recent years — particularly 2025 and 2026 — are under-counted due to patent publication lag and do not represent a genuine slowdown.
H04W (Wireless communication networks) covers the entire corpus, with H04L (Digital information transmission) and H04B (Transmission, general) forming a secondary layer. H04J (Multiplex communication) holds only 5 records and G16Y (IoT data processing) only 3 records — both are sparse relative to the core and represent under-served adjacent branches.
The observable co-filing activity is intra-corporate: Samsung Electronics and Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center share 3 joint families, and AT&T Mobility II LLC and AT&T Intellectual Property I LP share 3 joint families. No significant cross-company or academic collaborations are evident 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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