Introduction
When 5G SEP licensing disputes erupted in courts worldwide, the patents at issue had often been declared years earlier. Most implementers didn’t start paying close attention to the SEP landscape until products were already shipping and licensing demands had arrived. With 6G, that mistake is avoidable.
The ITU has released a 6G vision framework. 3GPP standardisation work is underway. And China holds over 40% of global 6G patent filings — with Huawei, ZTE, and China Mobile actively declaring SEPs for next-generation wireless standards years before any commercial 6G network exists. For any technology company planning to implement 6G eventually, the SEP landscape is being written today, while there’s still time to understand and respond to it.
Why 6G SEP Filing Happens Years Before Deployment
Standard-setting for next-generation wireless technology follows a predictable multi-year cycle. First, the ITU establishes a vision framework for what the new generation needs to achieve. Then 3GPP technical working groups develop the specific specifications. As companies propose patented technologies for inclusion in the draft standard, they declare SEPs. The commercial network comes years later.
For 5G, this process began around 2015. Commercial networks launched around 2019. The SEPs that are driving licensing disputes today were declared during those years between vision and deployment. For 6G, the ITU’s vision work is already underway, and early 3GPP study items are active — meaning companies positioning their patented technologies for inclusion in the eventual 6G standard are filing and declaring now. The commercial 6G network is years away. The SEP landscape that will govern licensing for that network is being built right now.
China’s 6G Investment Scale and Filing Position
China’s dominance in 6G patent filings isn’t accidental. It reflects a deliberate, coordinated national strategy that has its roots in the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), which explicitly targeted 6G leadership as a national technology priority.
The filing numbers: China accounts for over 40% of global 6G-related patent filings — the largest national share, ahead of the US, Japan, Europe, and South Korea. The major Chinese filers are familiar from the 5G era: Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile, China Telecom, and a constellation of state-affiliated research institutions including CAICT.
The strategic motivation: China’s 5G SEP position — which saw Chinese companies including Huawei accumulate significant declared 5G SEP portfolios — translated directly into global licensing leverage once 5G was commercially deployed. The 6G strategy is a deliberate replication of this playbook, executed earlier and with more national coordination. The goal is not just technical leadership — it’s licensing revenue and geopolitical leverage over the next generation of wireless infrastructure.
For technology companies planning to implement 6G in products — whether that’s smartphones, industrial IoT, connected vehicles, or fixed wireless — the concentration of Chinese SEP filings means that FRAND licensing negotiations with Chinese entities will be a structural feature of 6G product commercialisation. Understanding the basics of SEP significance and how FRAND licensing works is the starting point for building a coherent 6G licensing strategy.
The Lesson From 5G Over-Declaration
A documented problem in 5G SEP declarations: multiple independent studies have found that a significant proportion of declared 5G SEPs are not actually essential to the standard upon technical review. The incentive structure of standard-setting — where declaring a SEP has low cost and potentially high licensing reward — encourages over-declaration.
What this means for 6G: as 6G SEP declarations accumulate during the standardisation phase, implementers should not assume that every declared patent is genuinely essential. The declared number will substantially overstate the number of patents that are technically necessary to implement the standard. Early essentiality assessment — rather than waiting until commercial deployment and licensing demands arrive — gives technology companies a more accurate picture of genuine exposure and a stronger position from which to negotiate FRAND rates.
This is precisely why FRAND rate benchmarking methodology built on genuinely essential patents — not declared patents — produces a more defensible licensing position. A counter-offer anchored in essentiality-verified comparable data is significantly stronger than one based on declared patent counts.
What Technology Companies Should Do During the Filing Phase
The 6G filing phase is the window that won’t come back. Here’s how to use it.
- Monitor 3GPP working group activity in your technology sub-domain. 6G standardisation work is happening across multiple 3GPP working groups covering radio access network (RAN), core network, and specific air interface technologies. Track which technologies are being studied for inclusion and which companies are the most active contributors in your relevant sub-domain.
- Build an early-stage 6G SEP landscape. Track patent filings from the major Chinese, European, American, and South Korean 6G filers in your specific technology area. A landscape built during the filing phase captures a different picture than one built after standards are finalised — it shows who is positioning for SEP status, not just who has achieved it.
- Run essentiality pre-screening on high-volume declarers. Don’t wait until commercial deployment to assess whether declared patents are genuinely essential. Early essentiality analysis on the most active filers in your technology space gives you the factual foundation for eventual licensing negotiations.
- Consider standards body participation where you have relevant technology. The only way to influence which technologies become mandatory — and potentially to position your own patents for SEP status — is active participation in the working groups developing the standard. Companies that contributed technology to 5G standards hold a structurally different licensing position than companies that only implemented what others built.
How Our SEP Analysis Service Covers 6G
Our SEP analysis service tracks early-stage 6G SEP declarations across major filers, provides essentiality pre-screening for high-volume declarers, and maps the competitive SEP landscape for companies planning long-term 6G implementation strategy. For companies with technology relevant to 6G standardisation, we also support standards body engagement strategy — helping position your own innovations effectively during the filing phase where that positioning still matters.
6G’s SEP landscape is being written now — years before commercial deployment. Our SEP analysis service tracks the filing activity and essentiality picture while there’s still time to respond. → Contact Us
Conclusion: The Takeaway
The companies that understood the 5G SEP landscape early — that built their essentiality picture, engaged with standards bodies, and developed their FRAND benchmarking approach before commercial networks launched — had a structural advantage when licensing demands arrived. With 6G, that same window is open right now.
China’s 40%+ share of global 6G filings means the licensing landscape that product companies will navigate in the 2030s is being built primarily by Chinese entities today. Technology companies that wait until 6G networks are commercially live will inherit a SEP landscape that was decided during the filing phase they didn’t participate in. The ones that engage now — monitoring, assessing essentiality, and building their licensing position — are the ones that won’t be surprised by it.
