Spectrum Management Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, and Where Filing Is Headed
33.1% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 3,879 of the 11,735 records in scope, but the next 95 ranked companies still divide up more than half the field. Filings rose from 576 in 2017 to a peak of 779 in 2021, then eased to 739 by 2024 - a -5% move over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 as provisional; they will revise upward as more publications land.
- 1DIGITAL GLOBAL SYSTEMS INC9.9%
- 2SONY GROUP CORP7.5%
- 3PARALLEL WIRELESS INC5.8%
- 4INTEL CORP5.4%
- 5HUAWEI TECH CO LTD4.5%
See the full spectrum management patent landscape analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about the spectrum management patent landscape
Who holds the most spectrum management patents?
One assignee leads the ranking with 1,164 records, noticeably ahead of the field - fifth place holds 526 and tenth place 198. The leader's profile is built around dynamic spectrum access specifically, while the next tier down is dominated by large, diversified telecom and chipset companies whose spectrum filings sit inside broader wireless portfolios. Together the top five hold 33.1% of the 11,735 records in scope, so no single company controls the field outright.
Is the spectrum management patent field growing or shrinking?
Filing volume rose from 576 in 2017 to a peak of 779 in 2021, then eased slightly to 739 by 2024 - a -5% change over that three-year window, which reads as a plateau rather than a decline. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is expected: patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the newest years are always undercounted. Any conclusion about a slowdown should wait until those years finish filling in.
What technology areas do spectrum management patents cover?
The dominant IPC subclass is H04W (wireless communication networks), present in 70.9% of the 11,735 records in scope, followed by H04L (digital information transmission) at 32.4% and H04B (transmission, general) at 24.2%. Smaller but notable shares appear in G06F and G06N, reflecting a real but still minority presence of computational and AI-driven spectrum-decision claims. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares overlap rather than sum to 100%.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Spectrum Management Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.