NEW STUDY ISSUED ON 3G CELLULAR STANDARDS: Similar to the study done on open source by OSRM, David Goodman (Polytechnic University, USA) and Robert Myers (Fairfield Resources International, USA), released a study called "Analysis Of Intellectual Property For Third Generation Cellular Technology". It was based on an analysis of 7,796 patents and patent applications declared essential to the practice of third generation cellular technology standardized by two third generation partnership projects: 3GPP and 3GPP2.

The patents are clustered in 887 families, where each family covers one invention. Three quarters of the declared patents are assigned to four companies. A preliminary evaluation of one patent from each family under the study suggests that approximately 21% of the declared patents are actually essential. The paper presents the distributions of patents declared essential and patents judged essential according to technical category and patent ownership.

The paper concludes that a company that creates equipment or services for third generation cellular systems still faces a formidable task obtaining rights to patented technology. Even with the narrow definition of essential and the low ratio of essential patents to declared patents it may be necessary to acquire rights to several dozens of patents.

A copy of the paper can be downloaded here.