R&D, Innovation Highlighted In Industry-Backed Report On Mobile Tech 04/10/2015 by William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)We are in the midst of a “mobile revolution” that may equal the industrial revolution, and a key contributor is industry research and development and innovation protected by intellectual property, says a new report. The report, “The Mobile Revolution: How mobile technologies drive a trillion-dollar impact,” was commissioned by Qualcomm and carried out by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). It was presented at a 2 October event of the World Trade Organization Public Forum. The report’s executive summary highlights that the mobile industry has made “massive” investments in new infrastructure and R&D. The researchers calculated that companies invested $1.8 trillion from 2009 to 2013, almost exclusively from private sector funding. And in order to achieve 5G mobile networks and beyond, some $4 trillion will need to be invested by 2020 in R&D and capital expenditures, the report said. The panel was moderated by Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, senior economic officer, Economics Section, Economics and Statistics Division, World Intellectual Property Organization. Antonio Varas, partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a study author, gave some highlights of the report. He said it was the first time the value to consumers of mobile technology had been measured. The report found that “core technology” (2G, 3G, 4G) innovators take “enormous risks” with heavy spending on R&D with no guarantee of returns. These companies spend a larger portion of revenue (21 percent) on R&D than any other industry except biotechnology. So licensing of patented technologies is crucial, it said. And to make it all work, strong patent protection is needed, “to encourage large and risky investments” in innovation. Licensing is then used to share innovations with others in the industry. Along with this, industry standards are set through “open and meritocratic processes,” it said. The report includes the message that “weakening patent protection, intervening in the industry-driven standards-setting process, or curtailing technology licensing will jeopardize the future of mobile.” In order words, if you like the amazing technological revolution we are all enjoying, do not mess with the system that got us here. Becky Fraser of Qualcomm said that, using 4G as an example, companies have to come together as owners of the different pieces of intellectual property in order to develop the new technology. She mentioned the importance of strong IP frameworks and patent protection, and collaborative industry standard-setting processes. For consumers, different phones are able to communicate with each other because they use the same technology, she said. So agreements are reached on standard essential patents and standards, and licensing. They take risks and bring their IP to the table, she said. There could be other competing groups talking at the same time, and there are different standards bodies working on the issue. Companies have to take revenue and put it right back into R&D because users are always demanding more and newer technologies, said Fraser. Wunsch-Vincent ask how the situation has changed and what is like now, to which a panelist said now the discussion is around 5G. It is not shaped yet, and ideas are coming from different countries where there are clusters working on this. It will involve the “internet of things,” in which everything is connected to the internet. Varas said the contribution to mobile standards has moved from 80 percent from the US and Europe 20 years ago to about 50-60 percent now, with China in particular more involved. Asked if there are going to be competing standards, Fraser said there are a lot competing but that time will tell. Luc Savage, vice president, intellectual property & licensing; Orange, said there is room for different standards because nobody knows yet what’s best. But there should be basic standards underlying. Panellists did not directly answer the question of which body should set the global standards. On how competition comes into play if one has a patent and wants their technology to be the one that comes into play in the standard, Fraser reinforced that companies put their patents in together. Savage noted the importance of the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory concept. Samantha Akins of Grameen said the group is an NGO working toward the public good. The group relies on funding from sources like Qualcomm, Gates Foundation, and Mastercard. Often, she said, the IP goes to the banks, she said. But she noted that the group developed the largest mobile health network in the world and it is completely open source, so they are not concerned with IP on that. Savage then commented that open source does not necessarily mean no IP. On the R&D cycle, he gave the example of speed of acceleration from google first billion in 15 years, first billion for Google+ in six months. He noted that a company can drop a patent earlier if it sees no hype on the technology. Fraser said that in mobile we have seen competition work very effectively, as it has driven down prices exponentially. Image Credits: BCG Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related William New may be reached at wnew@ip-watch.ch."R&D, Innovation Highlighted In Industry-Backed Report On Mobile Tech" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.