Advanced connectivity and mobile infrastructure are vital to the European Union’s economic and technological aspirations. The deployment and seamless integration of next-generation networks like 5G and 6G are essential to revolutionising critical sectors, enabling exciting breakthroughs in AI, quantum technologies, clean tech, and more.
However, to realise this potential, the EU must confront mounting challenges, including a lag in investment, slow commercialization, and increasing global competition.
To become a world class industrial and technology leader, the EU’s industrial policy, competitiveness, single market, and green agendas must prioritise expansive transformational connectivity, and develop an investment and innovation-first approach to regulation.
Central to this effort is reinforcing standardisation and securing an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) framework that incentivises innovation by rewarding inventors and protecting their rights.
What does advanced connectivity allow us to do?
In essence, advanced connectivity supports European competitiveness. It is the cornerstone of digital innovation enabling progress in AI, quantum and clean tech.
The European telecom market has suffered from an investment gap since the 4G era, with other regions securing digital leadership and seeing a stronger emergence of digital businesses.
Despite €500 billion having been invested by telecom operators in upgrading and expanding Europe’s networks over the last decade, Mario Draghi’s milestone report 'The future of European competitiveness' finds that “investment per capita is half of that in the US, and we are lagging in 5G and fiber deployment”.
As such, Europe now faces a need to prioritise advanced connectivity and create the conditions for it to thrive.
What do technology standards enable?
While often overlooked, technology standards play a key role in Europe’s economic growth and global influence. Global technology standards such as 5G are developed in a collaborative process by industry, academia and government. They enhance trust throughout the entire global economy for consumers and businesses by offering high performance technology while ensuring interoperability and compatibility with existing systems and devices. This allows successful technologies to proliferate more rapidly.
Standards also facilitate growth by making it possible for companies to sell the same products all over the world, without having to make costly changes in each market. This creates economies of scale, helps businesses grow and ultimately lowers the costs for consumers.
Finally, standards help to spur innovation. Consider what connectivity standards have enabled: with 3G, phones became smart; 4G led to the app revolution; and 5G is enabling everything from AI and self-driving cars to telemedicine. The collaborative nature of standardization gives inventors a shared platform from which to innovate.
Why does Europe need to prioritise standardisation?
In today’s global economy, innovating and contributing to standards offers a competitive edge. Mobile connectivity increasingly represents a key enabler of digitalization, where Europe is looking to protect its technological sovereignty. While Europe is playing catch-up with the rest of the world in AI, chips, and digital platforms, mobile connectivity is one of the few remaining strongholds of European innovation. Two of the world’s top five global connectivity standards contributors, Ericsson and Nokia, are European.
Why is a strong intellectual property rights framework important?
If we want innovative European companies to remain globally competitive, shape key technologies and be at the forefront of digital transformation, we need to ensure a robust, efficient and predictable IPR framework.
This is even more relevant in the context of developing open global mobile standards, , where patents and fair licensing enables the few companies that contribute to the development of these foundational technologies to obtain fair return on their investments, incentivising further R&D. A strong IPR framework enables innovation, collaboration, and economic incentives for stakeholders to develop and adopt technology standards. The system works best when everyone recognises the value of IPR for the virtuous cycle of innovation and investment, allowing inventors to continue developing cutting-edge technologies for us all to enjoy.
What aspects of the EU IPR framework need to be reconsidered to promote innovation?
To accelerate innovation and future-proof Europe’s competitive advantage, we need to simplify IPR procedures, particularly through the support and further adoption of the unitary patent system, including the Unified Patent Court, and avoid creating additional bureaucratic hurdles. However, the proposed Standard Essential Patents Regulation threatens to do exactly the opposite, stifling Europe’s ambition to lead in global standardisation and jeopardising its status as a net exporter of innovations in advanced connectivity.
European companies, notably Ericsson, have been leading the charge on 5G since its beginning. Yet, in an increasingly competitive global landscape and as other regions recognise the importance of technology standards, the proposed changes risk undermining the patent system, leaving Europe’s leadership in this critical area at risk.
To support Europe’s competitiveness, the EU institutions must urgently reassess this proposal and reformulate its approach. This starts with improving on what we already have rather than upending existing systems.
Why does the EU need to seize the opportunity to establish conditions for innovation, now?
EU policies adopted in the next five years will be foundational for its innovative ecosystem to thrive in the long term, improving conditions for the next wave of research and intellectual property lifecycles that can take over a decade to bear fruit.
A smart and strategic policy approach to standardisation, security, future spectrum, research and AI will all play a role, as will improved investment conditions for advanced connectivity, but it ultimately comes down to how policy on IPR and innovation plays out in the new mandate.
We must take the opportunity to recognize the importance of European IPR and of policies that strengthen the global standardisation system. Serving the world well, that system has also supported tech leadership, prosperity and security for Europe.
Over the past five years, Ericsson has invested over $22 billion in R&D, about 18% of total sales, driving innovations with over 10,000 technical contributions to 5G standards. Fair compensation is ensured through good-faith licensing of patented technology, reinvesting revenue into R&D to fuel next-generation advancements, such as 6G, and sustaining the innovation cycle that is needed to stay competitive with the rest of the world.
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