As the smartphone market matured, many
companies are looking for the post-smartphone market that can generate new
revenues. Many market researchers expect that the interconnected IoT (Internet
of Things) devices will create a new market that will result in more than $1
trillion in value added to the global economy within 10 years. In the short
term, wearable computing devices are expected to form an early IoT market by
interconnecting body-sensing devices and providing useful personal services
including healthcare.
As we have seen in the smartphone market
development, it is expected that the super-competition to preoccupy the
leadership in the lucrative IoT market can lead to another round of patent
wars. The post-smartphone patent wars, however, will be more extensive because
of more extensive participation of players across several different industries.
The post-smartphone patent wars will also be more complex because of the recent
rapid change in legal environment and the learning curve from the smartphone
patent wars.
To assess the potential patent disputes risk
of the IoT, patent landscapes of three major IoT applications – smart
home, connected
cars, smart
healthcare (including healthcare/fitness
wearable devices) – and
IoT
platform connectivity are
researched. Followings summarize the potential patent disputes risk for each
subfield of the IoT.
Smart Home
To find the leading innovators in the IoT
smart home applications, more than 1000 published patent applications and
issued patents in the USPTO as of Oct. 20, 2015 that are related to the smart
home applications are reviewed. Nearly 400 patent applications are selected as
the key patents for the IoT smart home applications. In number of patent
applications, Google (including Nest Lab) is the leader followed by Samsung
Electronics, General Electric, LG Electronics, Allure Energy, Honeywell and
Ecofactor. One interesting point in the smart home patent land scape is a large
number of patents owned by two startups - Allure Energy (9 %) and Ecofactor (5
%) - that are not successful in the IoT smart home market compare to their
marker leader competitors such as Nest Lab and Ecobee.
A large number of patents owned by
commercially unsuccessful companies can be the potential patent disputes risk
to the smart home companies.
Allure
Energy is a smart home energy management company based in
Austin, Texas. Allure Energy develops leading-edge smart energy management
solutions for many IoT applications. Allure Energy has developed 22 US family
patents for the smart energy management up to now. Significant number of
forward citations shows the high quality of the family patents. Especially,
many patents of most key industry players including Google (Nest Lab), GE and
Honeywell in the smart energy management heavily cited Allure Energy patents. A
huge number of claims of the family patents make it very difficult to
invalidate the family patents through PTAB IPR process. Allure Energy already sued Honeywell in Texas
Western District Court (Case No. 1:15-cv-00079; January 29, 2015) and Nest Lab
in Texas Eastern District Court (Case No. 9:13-cv-00102; May 14, 2013).
Connected Cars
To find the leading innovators in the
connected cars, more than 1000 published patent applications and issued patents
in the USPTO as of Oct. 25, 2015 that are related to the connected cars are
reviewed. More than 600 patent applications are selected as the key patents for
the connected cars. In number of patent applications, Nissan is the leader
followed by AutoConnect Holdings, Toyota, Ford, GM, Omega Patents, American Vehicular
Sciences and Honda. One interesting point of the connected cars patent
landscape is the large number of patents owned by two active patent monetizing
entities - Omega Patents and American Vehicular Sciences and a suspected entity
- AutoConnect Holdings. The large number
of patents owned by the patent monetizing entities is a potential patent
disputes risk for the connected cars industry.
Omega Patents and American Vehicular Sciences
have involved in 15 and 52 patent litigations respectively. American Vehicular
Sciences is a subsidiary of Acacia Research. Flextronics
AP LLC,
which is a strategic patent development subsidiary of a connected vehicle
platform solution company Flextronics International, transferred the ownership of patents to AutoConnect
Holdings.
Smart Connected Healthcare
To find the leading innovators in the
connected healthcare, more than 1000 published patent applications and issued
patents in the USPTO as of Oct. 30, 2015 that are related to the connected
healthcare are reviewed. More than 700 patent applications are selected as the
key patents for the connected healthcare. In number of patent applications, Health
Hero Network is the
leader followed by Medtronics, Cardiac Pacemakers, Empire IP LLC, Trage
Wireless, Medapps, Philips, University of Washington, Bodyscience LLC and GE.
One interesting point of the connected healthcare patent landscape is the large
number of patents owned by the active patent monetizing entitiy - Empire IP LLC,
which is a potential patent disputes risk for the smart healthcare companies. Empire
IP LLC has involved in 413 patent litigations up to now.
To find the leading innovators in the
personal fitness/health care devices, more than 1000 published patent
applications and issued patents in the USPTO as of Oct. 20, 2015 that are
related to the personal fitness/health care devices are reviewed. Nearly 600
patent applications are selected as the key patents for the personal
fitness/health care devices. In number of patent applications, Fitbit is the
leader followed by Nike, Adidas, Apple, Samsung Electronics, BlackRock Advisors
(Jawbone), Tanita Co, Garmin Switzrand and Impect Sports Technology.
One interesting point of the personal
fitness/health care devices patent landscape is the large number of patents
owned by many commercially unsuccessful companies and NPEs. Another interesting
point is the small number of patents owned by commercially successful companies
(e.g., Under Armour).
Jawbone already sued Fitbit using the patents
of AliphCom and Bodymedia in California Northern District Court
(Case No. 3:15-cv-2579; June 10, 2015).
Sarvint Technologies (NPE) sued Adidas in Georgia Northern District Court (Case
No. 1:15-cv-00069 - 74; January 9, 2015). Adidas sued Under Armour in Delaware
District Court (Case No.1:14-cv-00130; Feb. 4, 2014).
IoT Platform Connectivity
To find the leading innovators in the IoT
platform connectivity, more than 5000 issued patents in the USPTO as of 3Q 2015
that are related to the IoT platform connectivity (LTE, WLAN, Zigbee,
Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy) are reviewed. More than 2800 patents are
selected as the key patents for the IoT platform connectivity. In number of patents,
Samsung Electronics is the leader followed by Qualcomm, LG Electronics, Google,
Intel, Nokia, Ericsson, InterDigital, Apple, BlackBerry, Texas Instruments,
Marvell, Avago Technologies (Broadcom), Sony and Panasonic.
One interesting point of the IoT platform
connectivity is the large number of patents owned by many active patent
monetizing entities - InterDigital, Optis Cellular Technology, Intellectual
Ventures, Innovatio IP Ventures, Adaptix (Acacia), Evolved Wireless LLC, Wi-Fi
One and WiLAN. The large number of patents owned by many patent monetizing
entities is a potential patent disputes risk.
To find a specific patent litigation risk,
individual patent with high litigation potential is further researched. One
interesting fact is that there were the increasing ownership transfers of
patents with high litigation potential to several NPEs for the purpose of
monetization. For example, US6519223 (Ericsson: System and method for
implementing a semi reliable retransmission protocol) that is a patent used in
litigation (Case 6:10-cv-00473, Texas Eastern District Court) transferred to
Wi-Fi ONE, LLC. Other examples are: US8457022 (Nokia: Method and apparatus for
providing signaling of redundancy versions) that was transferred to Cellular
Communications Equipment LLC is exploited in litigation (Case 2:15-cv-00581,
Texas Eastern District Court); US8411557 (Panasonic: Mobile station apparatus
and random access method) that was transferred to Optis Cellular Technology,
LLC is exploited in litigation (Case 2:15-cv-00300, Texas Eastern District
Court); US8935587 (LG Electronics: Method for effectively transmitting control
signal in wireless communication system) that is identified as the LTE SEP
(Standard Essential Patent) was transferred to Optis Cellular Technology, LLC. Optis Wireless Technology sued ZTE exploiting the LTE patents
acquired from Panasonic. Evolved Wireless has filed patent infringement lawsuits
against Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, HTC and Lenovo (Evolved
Wireless v. Samsung) exploiting five LG’s LTE
standard related patents (7,746,916, 7,768,965, 7,809,373, 7,881,236, and
8,218,481).
An interesting NPE activity involving high
patent litigation potential is the assignment to and from Cluster LLC. Cluster
LLC involved in nearly 50 assignment activities as an assignor (assignee: UPIP,
WI-FI ONE, Optis Cellular Technology) and as an assignee (assignor: Ericsson,
UPIP).
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