Did you know that LiFi can transfer data at speeds up to 224 Gbps? The sad fact is, the technology is still in the development phase and it’s going to be a while before it reaches our households. While LiFi takes its own sweet time, we still have the good ol’ wireless communication standards to rely on.

Wireless communication – the sheer power of which should not be underestimated – has become the backbone of the tech industry and research rate in the domain is at its peak. We have already covered 4G LTE tech and Li-Fi in our previous posts, in which we witnessed multiple tech giants in a tug of war.

Not just tech giants, but government-funded research organizations and private entities are also actively researching in the domain of wireless communication. During our analysis of the active players in the domain, we discovered several NPEs contributing to the 4G LTE domain.

Given the multitude of players active in the domain, we were curious to figure the top players researching in the domain.  As we were performing that analysis, it crossed our mind that universities are the hub and often the origin point of most technological inventions and innovations. Curious to figure the interest of universities in the domain, and the top 5 universities, we extended the analysis and summarized our findings below.

Patent Filing Activity by Universities in Wireless communication

We analyzed the patent filings in the domain of wireless communication and found that universities do not form a majority of innovators in the wireless communication domain.

In the past 5 years, out of 450,613 patent applications filed in wireless communication, only 28,284 were filed by Universities – which is 6.3% of the total patent filing. Not a huge number.

Top 5 Universities working in Wireless Communication

We analyzed those 28,284 patents to find the top 5 universities that filed the maximum number of patents. The ranking is as follows:

ETRI – which is also a prominent NPE of 4G LTE domain – tops the list. The non-profit research organization is a leading player in the 4G domain.

One thing worth noticing in the chart above is that Asian Universities are dominating the wireless communication research domain. All of the top five spots are occupied by the Asian universities. ETRI alone has filed more patents than the combined patents filed by the top 3 universities in China.  ITRI from Taiwan claims the third place in the chart.

Compared with the same timeline a couple years ago, we could see that the first three and the fifth spot have remained unchanged. At the fourth spot, Chongqing University of Posts And Telecommunications (a Chinese university) is a newcomer replacing Nanjing University of Posts And Telecommunications (another Chinese university which has fallen to the 6^th spot).

The study would be of great interest to IP practitioners working in the field of wireless communication. The research papers from these universities could be hidden treasures of non-patent literature that could put a question mark on the validity of a patent. If you’re looking for prior art in wireless communication domain, universities are a great place to start your search.

Don’t believe me? You should read this – Universities – The Ultimate source for Non-Patent Literature.

Authored By: Rohit Sood, Team Lead, Infringement Team.