FEATURED ARTICLES BY KEITH MALLINSON

6/20/2022· Telecommunication

Spectrum Auctions: Okay For Some, But Not For Others (Analyst Angle)

By: Keith Mallinson

A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Paul Wolfowitz, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and former President of the World Bank, controversially suggests that auctioning spectrum for 5G is detrimental to the U.S. and helps Huawei. While spectrum allocation is an important issue in industrial and economic policy, high auction fees do not appear to have impaired U.S. development and deployment of 4G or 5G.

12/3/2021· Telecommunication

Modest SEP Royalties On Smartphones Have Declined And Licensing Is Stabilizing

By: Keith Mallinson

Aggregate royalty payments for licensing cellular technology standard-essential patents (SEPs) in smartphones have remained in modest single-digit percentages and have declined since 2013. This defies purported concerns that the stacking of patent royalties paid to multiple licensors have led to or would lead to unreasonably high aggregate rates on mobile devices

3/22/2022· Telecommunication

Global Standard Setting At 3GPP Endangered With Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine (Analyst Angle)

By: Keith Mallinson

It took the industry 30 years to consolidate mobile communications developments into a single 4G standard with the introduction of LTE and the demise of WiMAX. That attainment—also in 5G—should be cherished; but it is imperiled by geopolitical developments.

7/5/2021· Automotive - Vehicular

Connected Cars: How C-V2X In 5G Will Transform Cars And Save Lives

By: Keith Mallinson

Technological improvements in cars over the decades have generally reduced costs or increased performance and safety. “Analog” technologies including collapsible steering columns, crumple zones and seatbelts have saved car occupants from death or serious injury. Many digital technologies have also improved our in-car experience with entertainment, mobile communications

1/24/2018· Telecommunication

Analyst Angle: How to Provide Gigabit LTE Cheaply When You Don't Have the Spectrum?

By: Keith Mallinson

Consumers are only beginning to use LTE in unlicensed spectrum. So far chatter has mostly been about operator trials, commercial chipsets and sales of devices to seed the market before anyone is to be able to use the new service feature. Nevertheless, the commercial impact will be quite dramatic within a few years.

12/27/2017· Intellectual Property

Tide turns in US and EU agencies' policies on SEP licensing

By: Keith Mallinson

The new US Department of Justice antitrust leader says antitrust enforcers are too accommodating to IP implementers when in dispute with standard-essential patent owners. Instead, patent owners should be allowed to decide how they want to exercise their property rights: "under the antitrust laws, a unilateral refusal to license a valid patent should be per se legal" – he also reminds us "the right to exclude is one of the most fundamental bargaining rights the patent owner possesses."

5/3/2021· Intellectual Property

One-Stop-Shopping With Segmented Offerings Is Most Appealing For SEP Licensing In IoT Including 5G

By: Keith Mallinson

Patent pooling is increasingly attractive for licensing cellular technologies with emerging IoT including 5G because it can provide greater transparency, predictability, and various efficiencies such as lower transaction costs at scale in standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing with multiple dimensions and complexities including

10/4/2017· Telecommunication

5G Investment Threatened by Tech Titans Snatching Financial Growth from Mobile Operators

By: Keith Mallinson

Technology innovation by chip, device and equipment vendors plus intense competition among national oligopolies of mobile network operators has improved cellular performance and reduced costs to the enormous benefit of consumers. Meanwhile, recent financial gains in the mobile ecosystem are largely accruing to Silicon Valley's tech titans including Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Netflix. The massive network investments required for 5G may not be forthcoming if this imbalance persists.

2/20/2018· Telecommunication

Analyst Angle: Innovation in the 5G communications platform and the IoT

By: Keith Mallinson

At a conference entitled Patents in Telecoms & the Internet of Things, at George Washington University in the District of Columbia last week, I was perturbed to hear a speaker mischaracterizing the communications standards as platforms of preexisting technologies upon which IoT innovation will occur. Major research and development investments are being made in communications technologies and standards to satisfy the anticipated demands of 5G and IoT. In fact, these investments, with significant innovations resulting already, are largely a leap of faith in advance of hoped-for IoT applications development and proof of demand for these.

11/22/2022· Telecommunication

Revenue Boost For Automotive Industry From Cellular Connectivity Outweighs SEP Licensing Costs

By: Keith Mallinson

The automotive industry is being revolutionized by continuous cloud connectivity, autonomous driving technologies, drive train electrification and shared mobility. These transformations are being facilitated in part by the standardized cellular technologies now commonly implemented in “connected vehicles” or “CVs”.