The photo shows LG Twin Towers in Yeouido, Seoul, the landmark headquarters of the LG Group. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — LG Electronics said on Nov. 20 that it has signed a patent licensing agreement with Amazon covering the use of LG’s Wi-Fi standard-essential patents (SEPs) in the U.S. tech giant’s consumer devices, marking a significant step in the Korean company’s push to monetize its intellectual property portfolio.
Under the agreement, LG’s Wi-Fi SEPs will be used across Amazon products that rely on wireless connectivity, including the Alexa smart speaker lineup, Fire TV Stick streaming devices, and Fire Tablets. Standard-essential patents are technologies that all manufacturers must adopt to comply with global technical standards.
The deal comes as LG continues negotiations with several other global companies over Wi-Fi SEP licensing. The company holds one of the industry’s strongest patent portfolios across telecommunications, Wi-Fi, broadcasting, and audio-video codec technologies.
As of the first half of this year, LG holds 97,880 registered patents worldwide, nearly half of which qualify as standard-essential. The company is also investing heavily in next-generation patent development in fields such as 6G communications, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) systems, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
Last year, LG won the top Sejong Award at the 2024 Korea Patent Technology Awards for its foundational patent in augmented-reality navigation for vehicles.
LG formally added “licensing of patents and other intellectual property rights” to its corporate charter in 2022 and has since accelerated efforts to build a recurring revenue stream from its expanding global IP portfolio.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
