PA Consulting’s 2025 5G report identifies increasing imbalance in 5G essentiality ratios, rise in patent declarations, and new important jurisdictions

While many companies own SEPs they claim are ‘essential’ to wireless telecom standards, not all these patents are truly essential – and this uncertainty gives rise to challenges in 5G SEP licensing. It is widely acknowledged that declaration data lacks transparency regarding true essentiality. Essentiality rates can also significantly vary among different patent owners and this variation directly impacts the number of SEPs each entity holds.

PA Consulting (PA), the global innovation and transformation consultancy, has just published its latest independent 5G Standard Essential Patent report, which aims to bring transparency to 5G essential patents globally. The research offers a true ranking of the leading global owners of potential 5G essential patents, moving beyond a simple number of declarations submitted to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). By providing a deeper analysis of the strengths within each licensor's declared patent portfolios, the report offers valuable insights for 5G SEP licensing negotiations worldwide.

In its latest study, PA reveals there has been a continued increase in the submission of patent declarations claimed to be related to 5G technologies, albeit with some initial signs of flatlining. Emerging IP jurisdictions such as India have become an increasing source of 5G patent filings. However, there remains considerable variation in the ratio of essential patents between patent holders, leading to uncertainty on fair licensing and cross-licensing rates for both SEP licensors and licensees.

Key findings of the report include: 

• There is a significant disconnect between the number of declared patents and the number of truly essential ones, as more declarations do not necessarily equate to more essential patents.
• The essentiality rate for the top 25 companies, based on current ownership of patents, varies significantly between the 10th and 90th percentiles.
• Among the top 25 patent holders, based on current ownership of patents, InterDigital, Lenovo, MediaTek, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, and Sony have the highest essentiality rates.
• More than 70 percent of reviewed patents deemed potentially essential to 5G are related to the physical layer and the radio access network (RAN) technologies.
• There has been a clear trend towards an increase in essentiality rates of all patents over the past decade as the market has migrated from 3G to 4G, and finally to 5G technology.
• The 5G patent landscape is increasingly dynamic, with substantial patent transactions, mergers, and acquisitions resulting in a fluid ownership base.

Sireesha Ancha, Intellectual Property Lead at PA, commented that, “5G adoption is continuing at scale across a wide range of markets, with new jurisdictions like India becoming a hotspot for patent filings. As the standards continue to evolve to enhance 5G for existing and new use cases, the number of declarations to ETSI has also increased at pace and brought increasing divergence in essentiality ratios between patent portfolios. The continued growth in 5G SEP licensing underscores the need for greater clarity around the true essentiality rate – particularly as patent declarations to ETSI generally provide little information about essentiality or the current SEP ownership status.”