WHO ALL OWNS HEVC PATENTS?
The purpose of this report is to conduct an independent, non-commissioned study on HEVC technology and provide a third-party assessment to various stakeholders.
The report provides a comprehensive overview of the patent landscape for HEVC technology, offering in-depth insights into its essential patents. The report aims to identify all granted patents worldwide related to HEVC technology. It aims to provide actionable and reliable information on HEVC essential patents to its various stakeholders and play a pivotal role in their various campaigns.
The report identifies top assignees, their share of total essential patents, discovers assignees with portfolios in this space, and examines the reassignment history of essential patents.
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:
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 HEVC standard.
- Video Coding
- Video Encoding
- Video Decoding
- Prediction
- Filtration
- Bitstream
- 3D Video Coding
- Transformation & Quantization
- Multi-layer Video Coding
- Block-based Coding
- CABAC
- Screen Content Coding
A four-step approach was followed during Phase 1 to create a comprehensive patent dataset:
Step 1: Extract all patents filed by authors or contributors of HEVC
Step 2: Extract patents listed in the list published by Access Advance as of July 1, 2025.
Step 3: Extract all patents published by Via Licensing.
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 April 13, 2013, to match the approval date of the first version of the HEVC standard.
After combining all results from Steps 1-3, we compiled a list of over 2600, 43% of the patent families were found to be present in the Access Advance patent pool.
Phase 2
We focused on identifying patents unrelated to the HEVC technology domain. An in-depth analysis of the title, abstract, and claims of each patent was performed to exclude patents limited to unrelated video processing or transmission domains, such as AVC (H.264), MPEG-2, or proprietary codec implementations. However, patents containing broad concepts relevant to both HEVC and other advanced video compression standards were retained for further assessment.
Phase 3
Categorization of all 2,388 patents was performed based on newly added features, including Multi-layer Coding, Block-based Coding, Transformation & Quantization, and Screen Content Coding, among others.
Phase 4
A detailed manual analysis of each patent family in the list was performed without utilizing any AI algorithm to determine the essentiality of the claims with respect to H.265. 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 HEVC 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 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
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