If you use cellular IoT technology in your products, you need to know that:
There is an alternative to undertaking time and resource intensive licensing negotiations with dozens of different patent owners.
The Sisvel Cellular IoT patent pool provides fast, simple and low-cost access to thousands of patents held by over 30 major innovators, including:
This website is designed to provide you with some of the basics about patents, cellular IoT technology standards, pools and licensing, as well as further details about the Sisvel Cellular IoT patent pool.
With knowledge comes the ability to make informed decisions, save valuable time and resources and secure peace of mind.
Anyone who invents something new can apply for a patent. The patent is a deal between the inventor and society. Rather than keeping their invention a secret, the inventor agrees to disclose it and explain how it works to everyone, so that we can all benefit from this new knowledge.
In return, society rewards the inventor with the exclusive right to use the invention for a limited period of time (generally 20 years). After this time, the invention is free for anyone to use. The inventor can use this exclusivity to make a unique product based on their invention, using the patent to prevent others from copying it.
In addition, the inventor can choose to grant others the right – a licence – to make use of the invention, usually in return for a payment – a royalty.
Standards – like LTE-M and NB-IoT – power interconnectivity in smart products. During the standards-setting process, dozens of companies come together and combine their best inventions into a single technology that can be used everywhere.
So when you put LTE-M or NB-IoT technology into a device, it can be used to connect to existing cellular networks almost anywhere in the world.
This allows you, the IoT product maker, to focus on developing innovative applications for connectivity while relying on the large investments in R&D made by the companies that developed the 4G/5G IoT standards and future generations of cellular standards.
Standard essential patents (also called SEPs) are patents on the inventions that companies have included in standards. To be able to use a standard, product makers should obtain licences to all patents that are essential to use that standard.
Standard essential patent licences allow any company to make full use of standards, including cellular IoT standards like LTE-M and NB-IoT. To encourage widespread use of the standard, the inventors behind these technologies license their SEPs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
This means they grant fair and equal contract terms to all users. FRAND royalties thus reward the companies that developed the standard and enable them to invest in future technology that may end up making your future product line a success.
There are dozens of companies with important patent portfolios related to LTE-M and NB-IoT. If you use these technologies in your product, you need licences.
As your business scales up, you are likely to start receiving communication from some (or many) of these patent owners with licence offers.
Ignoring them could lead to significant legal risks and problems with customers and suppliers. But dealing with them individually can be a significant strain on your time, money and energy.
Fortunately, there is a better, more efficient solution: the patent pool. Patent pools aggregate the patents held by multiple entities, providing a one-stop-shop to access them for one royalty rate.
Sisvel’s Cellular IoT patent pool brings together more than 30 patent owners with a combined portfolio of thousands of patents. It makes these patents easily available for IoT technology implementers to license on reasonable, equal and predictable terms, in a single transaction.
The pool represents a significant share of all patents related to LTE-M and NB-IoT, creating efficiencies for all parties.
Read more about Sisvel Cellular IoT here.
