29 September 2016, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced, together with several industry-leading technology innovators that they have joined Avanci, the industry’s first platform for licensing patented wireless technology to the Internet of Things (IoT).   The Avanci marketplace allows for faster time to market for IoT companies and will drive the adoption of connectivity around the globe.  

Avanci offers IoT companies “one-stop” licensing: a single license to standard-essential patents from the joining patent holders on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Using the Avanci marketplace, IoT companies don’t have to sign a licensing agreement with each patent holder one by one, reducing their internal cost and avoiding potential overlapped licensing. Avanci will focus initial licensing efforts on 2G, 3G and 4G cellular technologies for connected cars and smart meters with plans to quickly expand to other IoT product areas.

“The one-stop licensing model of this platform will significantly increase the cost predictability and transparency of IPR licensing to meet the rapidly growing demand of connection service providers,” said Spencer Shen, CIPO, ZTE. He continued, “Avanci will enable IoT manufacturers to conveniently get the world’s most advanced wireless technologies, so they can scale quickly, shift more focus to marketing new IoT products, and, finally to accelerate the development of IoT globally.”

“Since we began in April, we have received an overwhelmingly positive response from both IoT device manufacturers and patent owners to our streamlined licensing solution, and Avanci will quickly add more of these companies to our marketplace in the months ahead,” said Kasim Alfalahi, founder and chief executive officer of Avanci.

ZTE, the only Avanci member from China to date, is known for their future-oriented development efforts. In 4G/5G and IoT patents, ZTE is now one of the industry’s leaders. ZTE owns more than 815 standard-essential 4G LTE patents, accounting for more than 13 percent of the global total, as well as nearly one thousand patent applications involving key 5G technologies. An IOT patent report released by consulting firm LexInnova shows that in 2016 ZTE was one of e top three companies. A report from the Intellectual Property Office of the UK shows that ZTE topped the list of IoT patent holders from 2004-2013.    

ZTE believes that IoT, with diverse, extensive applications, will trigger the fourth Industrial Revolution, and outlined its predictions more broadly in their recently released M-ICT 2.0 whitepaper. Today, ZTE is providing and developing sophisticated solutions and applications in four vertical areas--Industrial Internet, Connected Vehicles, Smart Home, and Smart City.

In the next few years, the number of sensors, appliances and machines connected to the IoT will exceed that of phones to become the biggest category of connected devices. By 2021, nearly 16 billion devices among the 28 billion connected devices globally will be IoT devices, including smart-city devices, smart cars, smart home devices, as well as mobile devices for health care and diagnosis.