Qualcomm looks set to be the leading patent holder in 4G wireless communications after recording 24% of ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) declarations surrounding LTE, according to ABI Research.
Qualcomm has 16% of the 26,000 patents that have potential relevance to 4G technology generally, 
including WiMAX, says ABI.
"Innovation in this space continues unabated. 6%," says Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research, "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."
Other notable players in the LTE field include Interdigital (18%), Huawei (10%), LG (9%), Nokia (9%) and Samsung (7%). When considering 
the whole 4G environment Samsung takes second spot with 12% of all patent filings, and Nokia takes third with 6%.
"We see no major reason why the licensing situation in 4G will be significantly different from that for 3G", says Carlaw, "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."
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.