NFC Standards Essential Patent Candidates 2Q 2012

NFC (Near field communication) is the key technology for Smartphone wallet application: A Smartphone including an electronic wallet provides a variety of financial and payment capabilities. The Smartphone wallet application supports paying for products or services in much the same way as presenting a credit card, a debit card, a smart card, a transit card, or a toll tag for payment. The Smartphone wallet can communicate wirelessly with a point-of-sale (POS) terminal using NFC technology to provide the appropriate financial information to complete a payment transaction.

To find the key IPR holders for NFC patents, a keyword search of the USPTO patent data base has been performed. Total of 863 patents (214 issued patents) are identified as of 2Q 2012.

The identified NFC patents are further classified by industry standard for NFC technology (under development by the NFC Forum). The NFC Forum standard specifications included in the analysis are Activity, Digital, Protocol, LLCP (Logical Link Control Protocol), NDEF (Data Exchange Format), RF/Analog, RTD (Record Type Definition), and Tag Operation.

Total of 126 patents (36 issued patents), which are related to the NFC Forum standard, are identified as of 2Q 2012: NXP is the leader followed by Sony, Innovision Research & Technology, Nokia, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, and Inside Secure.

For details, please contact Alex Lee (alexglee@techipm.com).


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