Finnish tech goliath Nokia announced today that the company has registered more than 2,000 "patent families" concerning 5G technology with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to date. The term "patent family" refers to a set of patents describing the same ideas registered under several different authoritative figures and/or legal bodies.
Nokia reached the 2,000-mark on its list of 5G patents across the globe with the declaration of US patent US9,338,785B2 and European patent EP2848055B1. The patent in question was invented by Nokia Bell Labs-based researchers situated in Denmark. It outlines a new technology that "provides network resources for smartphones, industrial devices and other equipment with different capabilities and expectations to access services with shorter latency, increased reliability, and higher throughput".
Taking the most recent patents filed into account, the multinational telecoms company"s current portfolio of standard essential patents concerning 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G sums up to over 2,700 patent families.
Marcus Weldon, Nokia Chief Technology Officer and President of Nokia Bell Labs, commented on the Espoo-based multinational firm"s milestone achievement:
"With every wave of digital transformation, Nokia’s innovations, technologies and R&D have changed how the world is connected. Our world-leading researchers have enabled Nokia to build one of the industry’s strongest patent portfolios, while our 5G standardization team provides critical leadership to the 3GPP standardization process. We were pioneers of the earliest cellular innovations that laid the foundation for the entire industry and continued to pioneer game-changing technologies, such as MIMO, massive MIMO, mmWave radio technologies, advanced modulation and coding schemes, and mobile edge computing. And the tradition of technologies invented by Nokia Bell Labs leading the world clearly continues in the 5G era."
Nokia has been a major force in the advancement and development of 5G technology from as early as 2015 when the Finnish firm first ventured on its pursuit of wireless technologies. Since then, the company has injected millions of dollars into the sector, completely restructured its organizational makeup, and collaborated with countless entities from around the world in its push for 5G.
Verizon, BT, Qualcomm, Tencent, China Mobile, T-Mobile, O2, OPPO, SoftBank, Three, and other well-established organizations with global recognition and multinational operations have partnered up with Nokia to establish 5G networks, set up labs, and to collaborate on research and development to create and further advance wireless technologies.