Meet the mobile patent kings: Samsung and Nokia

Google, Apple and Samsung get all of the attention in the mobile patent wars, but it turns out only one of them is true powerhouse in terms of mobile intellectual property. Samsung and fellow handset maker Nokia lead the overall mobile patent portfolio rankings, followed by infrastructure makers Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent and software giant Microsoft, according to a new study from Chetan Sharma Consulting.

Apple and Google, who have come to dominate the mobile landscape in recent years, don’t even make Sharma’s list, which is based on an analysis of 7 million patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office over the last two decades. Only when Sharma breaks those patents into categories do Apple and Google make an appearance, showing up eighth and ninth respectively in the list of mobile platform patent strength. Their operating systems may dominate the smartphone market, but when it comes to the intellectual property behind smartphone operating systems, old school players like Samsung, Microsoft and IBM still rule.