LTE/5G value to vehicles found to be less than $10

The June 2022 Brattle Group report calculates Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates for wireless Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs) in vehicles for both 4G/LTE and 5G. 

Brattle found that wireless technology is increasingly expanding from handsets to the Internet of Things (IoT), including “connected vehicles.” LTE royalties for handsets (unlike those for vehicles) have been market and court tested, offering clarity around applicable FRAND rates for handsets. Rates for vehicles thus were calculated using LTE handset rates as a benchmark; adjusted for the differences in usage and capabilities. Brattle also found royalty rates for 5G as applied to vehicles to be the same as LTE because 5G rates have not been market or court tested and 5G currently offers no additional value to vehicles over LTE. While some 5G connected vehicle applications may create value in the future, that future is still uncertain and years away. Brattle notes that widespread adoption of 5G connected vehicle applications is necessary before any appreciable value can be attached to them.

Brattle uses two distinct approaches to obtain an independent, FRAND rate. The first identified a vehicle’s Telematics Control Unit (TCU) as the key licensable component and calculated a FRAND rate of $6.57 per vehicle for a comparable TCU-capable handset, adjusted for the lower connectivity and usage requirements of vehicles.

The second approach uses the consumers’ relative willingness to pay for wireless connectivity in different applications as an indicator of the relative value of a 4G license in those applications, and found that consumers value connectivity in vehicles significantly less than in handsets. Using this approach, Brattle found the rate to be $7.76 per vehicle.

The full report and other 5G tools are available exclusively through Unified Patents.  In addition to economic reports, Unified provides Objective Patent Landscapes (OPAL) for many standards, including 5G and LTE, with the world’s largest human evaluated training set, Wi-Fi 6, HEVC, AVC, and others.  Unified’s standard submission database, OPEN, allows users to access all contributions to major standards such as 3GPP, MPEG, IEEE, and IETF.

Complete the form below to receive the full executive summary done by the Brattle Group and sponsored by Unified Patents.

5G vRAN with Open RAN saves 92% over LTE

Traditional LTE Radio Access Networks (RANs) are expensive because of their high usage of expensive physical components. The use of a virtualized RAN (vRAN), orchestration, and automation in 5G dramatically decreases deployment and support costs while increasing network capacity. Open RAN (O-RAN)  also allows greater flexibility in procurement decisions as equipment can be sourced from multiple vendors rather than just 1. 

These factors along with vRAN and Open RAN overall benefits incentivizes network providers to quickly deploy 5G.

Complete the form below to receive the full executive summary done by ACG Research and sponsored by Unified Patents.

The full report is available as part of membership and/or license to tools for specific Unified SEP Zones. In addition to economic reports, Unified provides a 5G and LTE landscape (OPAL) with the world’s largest human evaluated training set.

VVC's Adoption Hampered by Patent Uncertainty and Low Value

Unified Consulting’s Craig Thompson has written an article covering the potential risks and uncertainty around the adoption of Versatile Video Coding (VVC). VVC is entering a competitive codec market where its future will depend more on royalty demands than on its technical specifications. As is detailed in an VVC economic report recently published by Unified Patents and authored by Charles River Associates, VVC is faced with strong competition from MPEG's new Essential Video Codec (EVC), and existing HEVC, AVC as well as from Alliance for Open Media's Advance Video 1 codec (AV1). The royalty pricing pressure on VVC is exerted, first, by MPEG-LA's AVC pool, which is viewed by courts in the United States and in Europe as being a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) rate, and, second, by AV1 and EVC, which have been developed specifically to incur less if any royalties.

Click HERE to read the rest of the article published by Streaming Media.

HEVC Royalty Stacking and Uncertainty Threaten VVC Adoption

IPWatchdog today published an article on the independent economic study that Unified Patents conducted with Charles River Associates on the economic value of the newly released Versatile Video Coding standard. The study points out that “[f]or VVC to capture market share among cellular device manufacturers, [its] royalty rates will have to be very attractive compared to the rates for AVC and AV1.” VVC is entering a fragmented, multi-codec market and its adoption is uncertain in the face of competitive video solutions that are subject to lower or no royalties. Much of this is due to the excessive royalties and licensing uncertainties that continue to plague VVC’s predecessor, HEVC.

Click HERE to read the full article.

5G RAN Developments: A Look at Licensing Defenses

Changes in the 5G radio access network (RAN) – and in particular network disaggregation – could make the monetization of patents essential to RAN equipment and operations (5G RAN SEPs) more challenging. Some of the challenges arise from identifying directly liable infringers in a disaggregated, multi-component system.

“Non-practicing licensing entities should find [the 5G RAN] market attractive provided they are able to source quality patents focusing on discrete functions performed by single entities. Traditional RAN vendors with licensable portfolios are likely finding the new market disconcerting, leaving them with existential questions.”

This final part of the three-part series (read Part 1 and Part 2) addresses other challenges to the monetization of 5G RAN SEPs such as the implementation of parts of the 5G RAN using open source software, patent exhaustion, and vendor indemnifications.

Continue reading the full article on IPWatchdog’s website HERE. This article is the third part in a series written by Craig Thompson, General Manager and COO for Unified Consulting.

5G RAN SEPs Likely to Encourage a Frenzy of Activity

The rapidly changing 5G RAN and the growth forecasts for the equipment market promises to attract 5G RAN SEP monetization. The large number and diverse ownership of 5G RAN SEPs should encourage a frenzy of monetization activity.

As of January 2021, nearly 33,000 active patent families have been self-declared to 5G. Of those families, over 63% or 20,750 families have been self-declared specifically to 5G RAN infrastructure. These families comprise nearly 70,000 active patents and applications. The pie chart below developed from Unified Patents’ objective patent landscaping tool (OPAL) shows the top 20 ownership of those families.

Continue reading the full article on IPWatchdog’s website HERE. This article is the second part in a series written by Craig Thompson, General Manager and COO for Unified Consulting.

5G RAN Developments: Challenges and Opportunities for Patent Licensing in a 5G Future

Much has been said about how 5G will better use the airwaves, giving wings to new communications between people and between devices. Little has been said though about how 5G could change markets and industries. The equipment market for the radio access network (RAN) is a good example of just one market that is now caught in the updraft of such change. Another market bound to rise is the market for patent licensing—and, in particular, standard essential patent licensing for 5G RAN. To help make sense of the 5G patent licensing market,  we have developed an AI-based 5G landscaping tool to help identify and weigh the relative patent portfolios (OPAL) and an indexed repository of all technical contributions made to 3GPP 2G-5G standardization work (OPEN).

Continue reading the full article on IPWatchdog’s website HERE. This is article is the first in a series written by Craig Thompson, General Manager and COO for Unified Consulting. In Part II of this series, he will address the licensing challenges unique to the RAN market.

Announcing the Launch of Unified Consulting

Many companies need customized solutions to help with patent portfolio analysis, landscaping, infringement, Standard Essential Patent (SEP) issues, and expert testimony.   Introducing Unified Consulting (UC), a sister company to Unified Patents, which can meet the needs of companies through IP consulting and data services and support. UC provides innovative solutions to clients which have traditionally been unavailable or extremely expensive.

UC will be led by Kevin Jakel and Craig Thompson, both of which bring decades of IP expertise to the new Company.  Craig will be leading UC’s consulting practice and data service offerings. Previously he had been head of IP at Alcatel Lucent and head of IP Licensing for Americas for Nokia.  Most recently he was leading an international IP consulting firm called TNT IP.

“Unified Consulting will be able to leverage existing software tools and analytics to provide capabilities previously only available to the largest companies,” says Thompson.  “I am excited to be part of an entity dedicated to providing the best quality answers to client’s questions and help improve the patent market in general.”

A major focus of UC will be to help companies better navigate SEP issues through offering data services and support.  As part of that, UC recently published a brief analysis of FRAND offers in TCL v. Ericsson that demonstrated the error of using comparative licenses there, and demonstrating how not everyone fairly paid the same rate for the same SEP license.

“We are excited to launch Unified Consulting to improve the patent market and help companies make more informed decisions,” said Kevin Jakel, member of UC’s board of directors.  “We believe that our tools and experience can deliver better outcomes for our clients in a number of important IP areas.”