What is the LexisNexis Cellular Verified Initiative?
- Manual Review
- Feedback from Companies
- Refinement and Classification
- Verification with Declaring Companies
What is the LexisNexis Cellular Verified Initiative?
The LexisNexis Cellular Verified initiative is a groundbreaking effort aimed at enhancing the accuracy and reliability of 5G patent data by meticulously cleaning and verifying self-declared ETSI patents. As the telecommunications industry grapples with conflicting reports on 5G patent ownership, this initiative seeks to provide a trusted benchmark for data quality, addressing the concerns of SEP portfolio managers, licensing experts, and IP professionals.
ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, maintains the largest global database of declared patents for technologies like 3G, 4G, and 5G. However, due to the nature of self-declarations, discrepancies often arise, with mismatched patent numbers and missing family counterparts. To tackle these challenges, LexisNexis launched the Cellular Verified initiative, collaborating with over 30 ETSI-declaring companies to enhance and validate the data.
Initiative Key Steps
The initiative involved several key steps:
1. Manual Review:
The LexisNexis team conducted a thorough manual review of all ETSI-declared patents, ensuring their alignment with official patent office records.
2. Feedback from Companies:
Detailed matching reports were shared with the participating companies, who provided feedback by comparing unmatched declared patents against their internal databases.
3. Refinement and Classification:
Using the feedback, LexisNexis enhanced patent number matching rules, identified missing patent family counterparts, eliminated falsely declared patents, and improved classification into 3G, 4G, and 5G categories.
4. Verification with Declaring Companies:
The LexisNexis team cross-verified with ETSI-declaring companies to ensure all patent declarations were accurately covered and declared under the correct standard generations.
Throughout the process, LexisNexis relied solely on publicly available data from the ETSI website, ensuring transparency and impartiality. The Cellular Verified initiative, completed over the course of a year, resulted in a clean and unbiased database that provides reliable patent counting statistics, offering the industry a trusted benchmark for 5G patent data. This initiative underscores LexisNexis's commitment to bringing clarity and accuracy to the complex world of patent declarations.