In this landscape it means a patent family that claims dynamic spectrum coordination, allocation or shared-access techniques specifically inside an Open RAN or O-RAN architecture — for example CBRS-style shared access logic implemented through O-RAN fronthaul, RIC or slicing interfaces. It excludes general spectrum-sharing patents that do not reference an Open RAN context, and general O-RAN architecture patents that do not address spectrum coordination. The search combines Open RAN terminology with spectrum-sharing terms and wireless-network IPC codes to isolate that intersection.

The corpus includes established RAN infrastructure vendors, mobile network operators, and specialist Open RAN software vendors, with filing concentrated through a peak year in 2021. No tracked assignee shows filing activity in the most recent year in this dataset, and several show a full year-on-year drop, which points to a field where the initial claiming has largely happened rather than one with an active new leader emerging. Reviewing the assignee ranking table alongside each filer's momentum trend gives a clearer picture than any single label of 'leader'.

Based on this dataset, it is slowing: filings peaked at 17 families in 2021 and had fallen to 11 by the 2022 midpoint, a flat-to-declining trend over a total corpus of 61 families. That said, patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any dataset understate real activity and should not be read as a definitive drop-off yet. A meaningful reassessment of the 2024-2026 trend should wait until those years have had time to publish fully.

The receiving-office data shows the United States is by far the dominant venue, with 43 of 61 records filed there compared with 10 at WIPO under the PCT, 5 at the EPO, and 3 in India. This suggests most current commercial activity and enforcement risk sits in the US, so a freedom-to-operate review limited to European or PCT-only searches would miss most of the active claim set. Companies planning international deployment, particularly involving CBRS-adjacent shared-access regimes, should still consider WIPO filings as a bridge to broader coverage given the smaller but present international footprint.

The densest claim coverage sits around fronthaul resource allocation, MIMO processing over the O-RAN fronthaul interface, and network-slice resource allocation and activation, all reflected in the most-cited records in this dataset. Thinner areas include RIC-level multi-operator spectrum arbitration, CBRS Spectrum Access System integration with O-RAN xApps, and ML-based interference prediction specifically for shared-spectrum coordination. A first claim in one of these narrower branches is more likely to clear prior art cleanly than one competing directly against the high-citation slicing and fronthaul patents.