Thread by @markscott82

The ‘race to 5G’ is often over-simplified as a battle between China and the West. But as these stats on who’s submitting patents for tech that will run these future networks show, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Why? Let me explain.

HT: @IPlytics

So let’s start off w/ basics. 5G isn’t one technology, but collection of different sorts of tech that make up overall new mobile standard. And companies worldwide submit patents to make up that standard — whoever has more standards included has a bigger say in how things work

So this is a cut-throat lobbying exercise, with all those involved in setting 5G standards voting on which patents should be included. You know ‘bluetooth?’ Well, that came from @ericsson & was named after viking king. Good times.

Right, so these charts show how China is both leading the way on 5G patents AND how non-Chinese companies are also likely to be major champions in how these mobile networks are designed. Confused? Yeah, again, it’s complicated.

If you take this by countries, then sure, China (w/ the likes of Huawei, ZTE and others) now represents one-third of all 5G patents submitted so far. That’s a lot, and is why West is pushing back so much b/c they don’t want to rely on Chinese tech, however benign it is

But if you break it down by company, and not country, the likes of Nokia, Samsung & Qualcomm start to pull even, or ahead, of Chinese competitors? Why? ‘Cos these firms have decades of patent experience, and are world leaders.

It’s just that if you look at them by nation, they’re not as ‘powerful’ as Chinese ones combined. But if you link ‘Western’ companies (inc. South Korea), then they total 60% of total 5G patents vs 34% for Chinese companies. That starts to look a lot different vs China dominance

Now there are some legit concerns about China’s role in 5G and the implications to security (caveat: @Snowden revelations showed US agencies were using backdoors to spy on us, too, but I digress)

But before we start railing against ‘Chinese 5G dominance’ (another caveat: China will represent largest % of 5G users for a long time), it’s worth drilling into who’s actually going to have their tech included in how this all works

One-third of 5G being based on Chinese tech is a good headline. But no one is saying that there’s a “Nordic” 5G problem w/ @Nokia & @Ericsson, combined, representing 22% of 5G patents

My point is this: 5G is complicated. There are security concerns. But it pays to look at underlying ‘patent wars’ & how West is pretty much doing fine before we jump the gun.

More here (w/ slightly outdated figures): politi.co/2KpppDs

Rant over. Thoughts appreciated.