Call Monitoring and Cellular Privacy

Patenting in the areas of call monitoring, including eavesdropping, and interception, and protecting the privacy of cellular callers have increased dramatically in last five years

Note: Based on 2,529 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Patenting Activity in Call Monitoring and Cellular Privacy Field

Number of Families

When dividing these two concepts into different categories, the majority of the recent growth is coming from the cellular privacy area, which is much larger to start with, but call monitoring is also growing steadily

Note: Based on 2,529 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Patenting Activity by Category

Call Monitoiring Cellular Privacy

While the influence of Chinese only patent families is growing in this field, it is not growing as rapidly as the area as a whole; Between 2013 and 2014 the rate of Chinese patenting slowed

Note: Based on 2,529 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Infl uence of Chinese Only Patent Families on Field

Number of Chinese Only Families Remaining Patent Families

Cellular handset manufacturers are well represented in the list of companies with the highest numbers of inventions in this field with ZTE Corp, and Blackberry at the top of the list

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

ZTE Corp

Blackberry

Ericsso

n

Qualcomm

HuaweiNokia

Samsung

NEC

Alcatel L

ucent

AT&T

Google LG

Electr &

Telecom Res I

nstit

Intel

Interdigital

Fujitsu

Sony0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Number of Patent Families

Analyzing the patent families by category Ericsson, and Qualcomm have the highest number of call monitoring filings in this study, but ETRI has the largest percentage of total

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

ZTE C

orp

Black

berry

Ericss

on

Qualco

mm

Huawei

Nokia

Samsu

ngNEC

Alcate

l Luc

ent

AT&T

Googl

e LG

Electr

& T

elec

om R

es In

stit

Inte

l

Inte

rdig

ital

Fujits

uSon

y0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Number of Patent Families by Category and Company

Cellular Privacy Call Monitoiring

Focusing on just the call monitoring space many of the same companies that appear in the combined list are present, but Verint Systems and Futurewei Technologies also show up

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

Ericss

on

Qualco

mm

Electr

& T

elec

om R

es In

stit

Nokia

Verin

t Sys

tem

s

Huawei

Samsu

ng

Alcate

l Luc

ent

Inte

rdig

ital

LG

Googl

e

Futu

rewei

Tec

hnol

ogie

s0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Call Monitoiring Top Assignees

While these documents were published in the last five years, the accumulated forward citations by company shows that ZTE Corp, even though they have the highest number of documents have a smaller number of citations; Interdigital, LG, AT&T, and Nokia on the other hand have more citations than their number of inventions would indicate

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

ZTE C

orp

Black

berry

Ericss

on

Qualco

mm

Huawei

Nokia

Samsu

ngNEC

Alcate

l Luc

ent

AT&T

Googl

e LG

Electr

& T

elec

om R

es In

stit

Inte

l

Inte

rdig

ital

Fujits

uSon

y0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Sum of Count of Citing Patents

A similar pattern is seen when all of the forward citations for all of the family members associated with each invention is considered; Blackberry, Ericsson, and especially Qualcomm have a significantly higher number of forward citations than ZTE even though they have significantly more individual inventions; Interdigital, and LG still punch above their weight

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

ZTE C

orp

Black

berry

Ericss

on

Qualco

mm

Huawei

Nokia

Samsu

ngNEC

Alcate

l Luc

ent

AT&T

Googl

e LG

Electr

& T

elec

om R

es In

stit

Inte

l

Inte

rdig

ital

Fujits

uSon

y0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Sum of Count of Citing Patents - Invention Family

After building up large collections of inventions starting in 2011 both ZTE and Blackberry have slowed their pace of filing; Meanwhile other major handset players, especially Huawei have increased their patenting production

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014/150

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Number of Inventions by Company and Publication Year

ZTE Corp Blackberry Huawei Nokia Samsung Google LG

Looking at additional telecommunications companies, and component suppliers it can be seen that Ericsson, and Qualcomm have dramatically increased their activity in the field; Ericsson has largest number of inventions in 2014/15 time frame even though they are 3rd over last five years

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014/150

10

20

30

40

50

60

Number of Inventions by Company and Publication Year

Ericsson Qualcomm NEC Alcatel Lucent AT&T

ThemeScape analysis of the collection shows that ZTE is primary focused on secure SMS type messaging, call monitoring by law enforcement, and encryption; Blackberry is focusing on smartphone applications, and global secure access

Note: Based on 2,727 call monitoring, or cellular privacy, or anonymity documents applied for between 2010 and 2015; Based on data from Thomson Innovation; Analyzed by Publication Year