Unified Patents and The Brattle Group, a renowned group of economists and damages experts, announced an update to its 2025 Wi-Fi RAND Licensing Rate Report, extending the analysis to Wi-Fi 7 and to developments in the Wi-Fi standard-essential patent licensing market since the original report. The full report is available exclusively to members of Unified Patents’ Wi-Fi Zone.
The 2025 report estimated an aggregate reasonable and non-discriminatory royalty range of $0.45 to $0.68 per device for Wi-Fi functionality through Wi-Fi 6/6E. The update examines whether Wi-Fi 7 justifies raising that range and whether separate royalty rates for enterprise and residential access points can be reconciled with RAND principles, drawing on new pool launches, recently published rate cards, a European court decision, and current market data.
The update reaches two principal conclusions. First, although Wi-Fi 7 delivers meaningful engineering advances, they improve performance along dimensions the standard already priced rather than introducing a qualitatively new source of value, and recent licensing evidence is consistent with this view. Brattle therefore concludes that the aggregate RAND range for Wi-Fi functionality through Wi-Fi 7 remains $0.45 to $0.68 per unit, as a single cumulative rate rather than an additional royalty for each generation. Second, the report finds an economic basis for a moderate premium on enterprise access points relative to residential products, grounded in differences in how much of the standard each product class implements and in the price sensitivity of its buyers. The full report sets out the supporting analysis, the market evidence, and the implications for implementers.
For more information, email sasha@unifiedpatents.com.