Spectrum Management Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 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.
- Wireless networking dominates the claim space. H04W covers 70.9% of records, with H04L and H04B each present in roughly a quarter to a third of filings — a strong hint that most activity sits inside network-layer and transmission claims rather than pure allocation algorithms.
- Filing has plateaued, not collapsed. Volume moved from 779 in 2021 to 739 in 2024, a -5% shift over three years, with 2025-2026 figures still filling in as publication catches up to filing.
Filing growth compares 2021 (779 records) with 2024 (739) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 11,735 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the spectrum management patent record actually shows
Spectrum management sits at the intersection of radio engineering and network software: claims range from RF-level beamforming and co-site interference control to cloud-based allocation logic that decides which band a device uses moment to moment. The 11,735 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, drawing on filings that name dynamic spectrum access, radio channel management and beamforming control alongside more conventional spectrum allocation language. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years of the trend are undercounted by construction, not because activity has actually stopped.
The picture that emerges is one of moderate concentration rather than a single dominant gatekeeper: a handful of large telecom and chipset firms hold a meaningful share of the leading positions, while a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants files around specific implementations. That structure matters for freedom-to-operate work — the leaders' claims are worth mapping carefully, but the open ground is in the many narrower filings behind them.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 11,735-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the class shares below add to more than 100% of records.
Filing volume, 2017-2026
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.
IPC subclass distribution
H04W (wireless communication networks) appears in 70.9% of the 11,735 records in scope, well ahead of H04L (32.4%) and H04B (24.2%). AI-adjacent classes G06F and G06N each sit near 7%, showing that computational spectrum-decision claims are a real but still minority slice of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 11,735 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Spectrum Management Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited prior art
US11184950B1 – Incorporating co-site interference in dynamic spectrum access systems with minimal computational needs
A system and method for incorporating co-site interference impact in dynamic spectrum access for heterogeneous hierarchical networks where preprocessing is used to create lookup tables for the different types of co-site interference. The lookup tables reflect the weight of the spectral leakage lobes for all signals internal and external to the system under different conditions. Lookup tables can be used at any hierarchical entity that offer dynamic spectrum access services in a cloud services construct.Filed by Rockwell Collins, granted 2021-11-23 – illustrates how co-site interference handling has moved from RF-only design into precomputed, cloud-servable lookup logic.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130201316A1 | System and method for server based control | 1,724 |
| 2 | US20190349426A1 | The internet of things | 1,106 |
| 3 | US20030093187A1 | PFN/TRAC systemTM FAA upgrades for accountable remote and robotics control to stop the unauthorized use of ai… | 977 |
| 4 | US20190364492A1 | Methods and devices for radio communications | 876 |
| 5 | US20040028003A1 | System and method for management of a shared frequency band | 841 |
| 6 | US20200259896A1 | Industrial Automation with 5G and Beyond | 747 |
| 7 | US20100075704A1 | Method and System for Dynamic Spectrum Access Using Specialty Detectors and Improved Networking | 690 |
| 8 | US20060206246A1 | Second national / international management and security system for responsible global resourcing through tech… | 674 |
| 9 | US20050058149A1 | Time-scheduled and time-reservation packet switching | 669 |
| 10 | US20070211786A1 | Multicarrier Sub-Layer for Direct Sequence Channel and Multiple-Access Coding | 666 |
Citation counts are a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not a measure of current commercial relevance – older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
Three patterns stand out once you separate the leaders from the long tail and the recent years from the settled ones.
The top of the field is dense, the rest is open
Combined, the five leading assignees hold 33.1% of all records in scope, and the leading ten hold 45.3%. That leaves more than half the field split across 90 further ranked companies plus unranked filers – useful context before assuming any single company blocks a given approach.
Claims cluster in network-layer wireless, not raw RF
H04W's dominance, alongside meaningful H04L and H04B presence, suggests most spectrum management claims are written as network-management or transmission-control logic rather than narrow antenna or RF hardware claims. G06N's 6.8% share shows AI-driven allocation is present but still a minority approach.
Volume has levelled off, not fallen away
Filings moved from a 2021 peak of 779 to 739 in 2024 – a modest -5% shift, not a decline. Given the 18-month publication lag, 2025-2026 figures will fill in further and should not be read as a slowdown yet.
Even the most active filers are pulling back in the newest year
The leading assignee's latest-year filings fell 88% year over year, and several other large filers show similarly steep drops. This is consistent with publication lag rather than a real pullback – the latest year is always the least complete in the dataset.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to spectrum management patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders mix large telecom equipment makers, chipset vendors and at least one spectrum-focused specialist, but the concentration figures show plenty of room outside their core claims.
A specialist spectrum-access filer tops the ranking
The leading assignee's filing count is well ahead of fifth place at 526, pointing to a company built specifically around dynamic spectrum access rather than a diversified telecom portfolio filing spectrum claims incidentally.
Large telecom and chipset names hold the next tier
Positions two through five are held by large, diversified electronics and telecom companies whose spectrum claims sit alongside broader wireless portfolios – their filings are more likely to be defensive breadth than a core spectrum-access business.
Filing drops off quickly past the top ten
Tenth place sits at 198 records, less than a fifth of the leader's count. Combined with the ranked group covering only 45.3% of all 11,735 records at the top 10, this confirms a long tail of narrower filers rather than a small closed club.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| DIGITAL GLOBAL SYSTEMS INC | 46 | -88% |
| Intel Corp | 4 | -81% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 4 | -56% |
| Parallel Wireless, Inc. | 3 | -88% |
| Apple Inc. | 1 | -75% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 1 | -89% |
| Sony Group Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace filing, or tracking a competitor.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With 33.1% of records held by the top five assignees, a freedom-to-operate check should start by reading the leading filer's independent claims closely rather than assuming broad blocking coverage.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTest whitespace in AI-driven allocation
G06N's 6.8% share against H04W's 70.9% suggests AI-based spectrum decision claims are still a minority approach – worth a novelty check before assuming the space is crowded.
Run a whitespace search in EurekaWatch the 2025-2026 revision
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the most recent filing years will revise upward. Re-check the trend in six to twelve months before drawing conclusions about a slowdown.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about the spectrum management patent landscape
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.
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.
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%.
The technology mix points to several under-claimed branches relative to the H04W core: AI-driven dynamic band selection, cloud-served spectrum allocation services, multiplex-layer coordination under H04J, and business-process framing of spectrum trading under G06Q. These sit at meaningfully lower filing shares than the wireless-networking core, which is where most competitive activity concentrates. A narrower claim built around one of these branches is less likely to run into the dense prior art that surrounds core H04W filings.
US11184950B1, assigned to Rockwell Collins and granted in November 2021, covers a method for incorporating co-site interference into dynamic spectrum access systems using precomputed lookup tables rather than heavy real-time computation. The lookup tables encode spectral leakage weights for signals inside and outside the system, and are structured so any hierarchical network entity can query them as a cloud service. For anyone building co-site interference handling into a dynamic spectrum access product, this filing is worth reading closely before choosing a real-time versus precomputed approach.
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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.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.