Where are the Wi-Fi 6 Essential Patents Beyond the Pools?
Uncovering the Hidden Assignees
This report aims to conduct an independent, non-commissioned study on Wi-Fi 6 technology and provide a third-party assessment to various stakeholders.
The objective of this report is to identify and evaluate all Wi-Fi 6 patents that are potentially essential yet remain outside existing patent pools. The analysis helps stakeholders understand the full scope of Wi-Fi 6 essentiality beyond the formally recognized patent pools and highlights the blind spots in the Wi-Fi 6 patent licensing ecosystem. The report further excludes the Wi-Fi 6 standard contributors and uncovers the hidden assignees to the Wi-Fi 6 technology.
Who will benefit:
- SEP Holders: To know leading assignees, portfolio understanding, and crafting licensing strategies.
- SEP Implementers: To know potential threats, FTO issues, and strategize licensing negotiations.
- Patent Monetization Firms: Discover assignees and their relevant portfolios for monetization purposes.
- Law Firms: To build litigation strategies for assertion or defence purposes.
- Patent Pools: Discover potential licensors to join their pool.
- AI Software Firms: To train their AI models with our comprehensive datasets.
What you’ll get:
Although IEEE maintains a database of LoAs submitted by patent holders, these declarations do not fully reflect the actual landscape of a particular technology. Therefore, we recognised the need to create a patent landscape relevant to the Wi-Fi 6 standard. We employed a four-phase approach to conduct this detailed study.
Phase 1
A comprehensive dataset of active, granted worldwide patents was built by covering the newly added features of the Wi-Fi 6 standard. Based on several publicly available reports, we identified the following features as new additions in 802.11ax compared to the previous standard, 802.11ac:
- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
- Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO)
- Target Wake Time (TWT)
- Beamforming
- Basic Service Set (BSS) Colouring
- 1024 QAM
- 160 MHz
- Spatial Streams
We further identified patent families using combinations of keywords, CPCs, assignees, and citations, with a focus on the newly added features. We restricted our key strings to a priority date of 'on or before Feb 2021' to match the approval date of 802.11ax.
Also the obtained patent dataset was compared with LoAs declared to 802.11ax or 802.11 2020 and patent pools such as Sisvel as of March 21, 2025, and Atlas Global website.
Phase 2
We focused on identifying patents unrelated to the Wi-Fi 6 technology domain. An analysis of the title, abstract, and claims of each patent was conducted to identify patents with limitations related to telecommunications terminology or concepts, such as LTE, UMTS, PDCCH, PDSCH, and similar. Such patents were removed from our list. However, patents written with broad terminology or concepts applicable to both telecom and Wi-Fi 6 technologies were considered for further analysis.
Additionally, several patent families related to coordinated beamforming, 320 MHz, EHT, MLO, and similar concepts were identified, which are also associated with the WiFi-7 standard and were excluded from the list.
Patents already included in existing patent pools were excluded from the dataset to ensure the analysis focused solely on off-pool patents. After this filtration, 1,759 patent families remained.
Subsequently, the analysis was limited to assignees that do not appear in any existing patent pool and do not contributed to the Wi-Fi 6 Standard. This resulted in a final dataset of 454 patent families.
Phase 3
Categorisation of all 454 patents was performed based on newly added features, including Beamforming, MU-MIMO, spatial streams, OFDMA, and 160 MHz, among others.
Phase 4
A detailed manual analysis of each patent family in the list was performed without utilising any AI algorithm to determine the essentiality of the claims with respect to 802.11-2020 or 802.11ax. Our team reviewed each patent family in detail and assessed its essentiality, providing rationale and excerpts from the relevant standards to support their findings. When evidence for each claim limitation was identified in the standard, we mark the family as essential and proceed to the next one. If a particular independent claim is found to be non-essential to the standard due to certain claim limitations, we reviewed the following independent claim for analysis purposes. Further, if no independent claim of that patent was found to be essential, we reviewed the other granted family member for essentiality purposes. We have marked a particular patent family as non-essential only after reviewing all granted family members.
Please note that our team has not conducted a prior art or invalidity search to determine the validity of the essential patents.
We have prepared a comprehensive interactive dashboard to give a holistic overview of all essential patents in the Wi-Fi 6 technology domain outside the patent pools.
Although IEEE maintains a database of LoAs submitted by patent holders, these declarations do not fully reflect the actual landscape of a particular technology. Therefore, we recognised the need to create a patent landscape relevant to the Wi-Fi 6 standard. We employed a four-phase approach to conduct this detailed study.
In Phase 1, we focused on building a comprehensive dataset of active, granted worldwide patents covering the newly added features of the Wi-Fi 6 standard. Based on several publicly available reports and research papers, we identified the following features as new additions in 802.11ax compared to the previous standard, 802.11ac:
- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
- Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO)
- Target Wake Time (TWT)
- Beamforming
- Basic Service Set (BSS) Colouring
- 1024 QAM
- 160 MHz
- Spatial Streams
We followed a four-step approach during Phase 1 to create a comprehensive patent dataset.
Step 1: Extract all patents listed under LoAs declared to 802.11ax or 802.11 2020.
Step 2: Extract patents listed in the list published by Sisvel as of March 21, 2025.
Step 3:
Step 4: Identify patent families using combinations of keywords, CPCs, assignees, and citations, with a focus on the newly added features. We restricted our key strings to a priority date of 'on or before Feb 2021' to match the approval date of 802.11ax.
After combining all results from Steps 1-3, we compiled a list of over 3,000 patent families.
We recognise the terminology similarities between 5G and Wi-Fi 6 technologies; therefore, we expected a substantial number of telecom patents to be captured in Step 3.
In Phase 2, we focused on identifying patents unrelated to the Wi-Fi 6 technology domain. We analysed the title, abstract, and claims to identify patents with limitations related to telecom terminologies or concepts, such as LTE, UMTS, PDCCH, PDSCH, and similar. Such patents were removed from our list. However, patents written with broad terminology or concepts applicable to both telecom and Wi-Fi 6 technologies were considered for further analysis.
Additionally, we identified several patent families related to coordinated beamforming, 320 MHz, EHT, MLO, and similar concepts, which are also associated with the WiFi-7 standard, and were excluded from the list.
After removing irrelevant patents, the refined list comprised 2,011 patent families, including over 35 patent families declared to ETSI under various telecom specifications.
In Phase 3, we categorised all 2,011 patents based on newly added features, including Beamforming, MU-MIMO, spatial streams, OFDMA, and 160 MHz, among others.
In Phase 4, we performed a detailed analysis of each patent family in the list without utilising any AI algorithm to determine the essentiality of the claims with respect to 802.11-2020 or 802.11ax. Our team reviewed each patent family in detail and assessed its essentiality, providing rationale and excerpts from the relevant standards to support their findings. When our team identifies evidence in the standard for each claim limitation, we mark the family as essential and proceed to the next one. In a situation, if our team found a particular independent claim to be non-essential to the standard due to certain limitations, we reviewed the following independent claim for analysis purposes. Further, if no independent claim of that patent was found to be essential, we reviewed the other granted family member for essentiality purposes. We have marked a particular patent family as non-essential only after reviewing all granted family members.
Please note that our team has not conducted a prior art or invalidity search to determine the validity of the essential patents.
We have done an extensive study on Wi-Fi 6 technology and prepared a comprehensive report. Our team has carried out a manual assessment on each of 2000+ patent families to determine the essentiality of patent claims with 802.11 2020 or 802.11 ax standard. The following insights were derived from the report.
- 1000+ active granted patent families are essential to the WiFi-6 standard.
- Huawei has the most significant number of essential patents.
- 85% of the essential patents have at least one US family member.
- 54 unique assignees are having at least one essential patent.
- 11 patent families were found to be essential to WiFi-6 that are declared to ETSI as well.
We have prepared a comprehensive interactive dashboard to give a holistic overview of all essential patents in the Wi-Fi 6 technology domain.
Although IEEE maintains a database of LoAs submitted by patent holders, these declarations do not fully reflect the actual landscape of a particular technology. Therefore, we recognised the need to create a patent landscape relevant to the Wi-Fi 6 standard. We employed a four-phase approach to conduct this detailed study.
In Phase 1, we focused on building a comprehensive dataset of active, granted worldwide patents covering the newly added features of the Wi-Fi 6 standard. Based on several publicly available reports and research papers, we identified the following features as new additions in 802.11ax compared to the previous standard, 802.11ac:
- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
- Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO)
- Target Wake Time (TWT)
- Beamforming
- Basic Service Set (BSS) Colouring
- 1024 QAM
- 160 MHz
- Spatial Streams
We followed a three-step approach during Phase 1 to create a comprehensive patent dataset.
Step 1: Extract all patents listed under LoAs declared to 802.11ax or 802.11 2020.
Step 2: Extract patents listed in the list published by Sisvel as of March 21, 2025.
Step 3: Identify patent families using combinations of keywords, CPCs, assignees, and citations, with a focus on the newly added features. We restricted our key strings to a priority date of 'on or before Feb 2021' to match the approval date of 802.11ax.
After combining all results from Steps 1-3, we compiled a list of over 3,000 patent families.
We recognise the terminology similarities between 5G and Wi-Fi 6 technologies; therefore, we expected a substantial number of telecom patents to be captured in Step 3.
In Phase 2, we focused on identifying patents unrelated to the Wi-Fi 6 technology domain. We analysed the title, abstract, and claims to identify patents with limitations related to telecom terminologies or concepts, such as LTE, UMTS, PDCCH, PDSCH, and similar. Such patents were removed from our list. However, patents written with broad terminology or concepts applicable to both telecom and Wi-Fi 6 technologies were considered for further analysis.
Additionally, we identified several patent families related to coordinated beamforming, 320 MHz, EHT, MLO, and similar concepts, which are also associated with the WiFi-7 standard, and were excluded from the list.
After removing irrelevant patents, the refined list comprised 2,011 patent families, including over 35 patent families declared to ETSI under various telecom specifications.
In Phase 3, we categorised all 2,011 patents based on newly added features, including Beamforming, MU-MIMO, spatial streams, OFDMA, and 160 MHz, among others.
In Phase 4, we performed a detailed analysis of each patent family in the list without utilising any AI algorithm to determine the essentiality of the claims with respect to 802.11-2020 or 802.11ax. Our team reviewed each patent family in detail and assessed its essentiality, providing rationale and excerpts from the relevant standards to support their findings. When our team identifies evidence in the standard for each claim limitation, we mark the family as essential and proceed to the next one. In a situation, if our team found a particular independent claim to be non-essential to the standard due to certain limitations, we reviewed the following independent claim for analysis purposes. Further, if no independent claim of that patent was found to be essential, we reviewed the other granted family member for essentiality purposes. We have marked a particular patent family as non-essential only after reviewing all granted family members.
Please note that our team has not conducted a prior art or invalidity search to determine the validity of the essential patents.
We have created an interactive dashboard for Wi-Fi 6 patent landscape
Feel free to connect with us:
