Chip maker, Qualcomm is leading the pack for most number of patents filed for Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. ABI Research says that the company alone contributed 24 % of the total patents filed for LTE.

Others in the list include Interdigital (18%), Huawei (10%), LG (9%), Nokia (9%) and Samsung (7%).

In terms of whole 4G environment related patents, Qualcomm’s share is at 16% followed by Samsung at 12 % and Nokia with 6%.

Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research, comments, "Innovation in this space continues unabated. Given that these declarations reflect work completed 18 months ago, it is very feasible that this landscape could shift again during the coming two years as we see the 4G market ramp up." He goes on to add that, "We see no major reason why the licensing situation in 4G will be significantly different from that for 3G. There is still a big list of ‘haves' but also a large list of ‘have-nots'. The only major change is that the list of haves has changed significantly to embrace newly active patent holders such as Samsung and Huawei."

These data are contained in ABI Research's database product "LTE and WiMAX Intellectual Landscapes." The research was compiled through analysis of IEEE declarations of essentiality as well as a full search of patents relating to OFDM, OFDMA, Beamforming, SDMA, HARQ, SC-FDMA, MIMO and Fast Power Control.