About SEP Insights
SEP Insights is a curated database of essentiality analyses for standard-essential patents. Every entry is authored by a primary analyst and signed off by a second reviewer. No AI scoring. No machine-generated verdicts.
The problem
A modern device — a phone, a vehicle, a streaming codec — implicates thousands of declared standard-essential patents. The patent owners say their patents are essential. The implementers paying royalties want to know which ones actually are. Independent essentiality assessment is the bedrock of any defensible licensing negotiation, opinion of counsel, or court submission.
That assessment has historically come from one of two places: an internal team doing the work by hand, or an outside law firm at a cost that scales with billable hours. The result is the same — most patents are never independently assessed, and the ones that are cost more than most negotiations can justify.
More recently, AI-scored databases have appeared. They are fast and cheap, but they are not defensible. An LLM cannot produce an opinion of counsel. An automated essentiality score cannot be quoted in a Markman hearing. For the work that actually matters, somebody still has to read the claim, read the standard, and make a judgment.
What we do
SEP Insights builds a verified record of that judgment. For declared SEPs across 3GPP (4G, 5G), Wi-Fi (6, 7), HEVC, VVC, and AV1, our analysts produce structured determinations — Essential, Not Essential, Potentially Essential, or Under Review — each backed by a claim chart, a written rationale, and an explicit two-analyst sign-off.
We charge per analysis, with volume packs that bring the cost down to a fraction of what comparable work costs at a law firm or specialised consultancy. Browsing the index is free; you pay only to unlock the analyses you actually need.
Who it is for
We work with three kinds of professionals.
- Licensing executives at implementers, evaluating royalty demands and pool offers.
- SEP attorneys and litigation teams, preparing for negotiation or proceedings.
- IP counsel at patent owners and pool members, understanding their own portfolios.
In each case the requirement is the same: an independent, defensible, attributable essentiality determination, delivered fast and at a price that lets you ask the question more than once.
How we are different
Every analysis on this site is signed by two named experts with LinkedIn profiles. Verdicts of Essential, Not Essential, or Potentially Essential require both. We treat that two-analyst sign-off as the minimum bar for anything we are willing to put a price on.
We do not use AI scoring or LLM-generated determinations. We rely on the same primary sources — the patent, the standard text, the prosecution history — that the analysts at a law firm would. The difference is the price point and the availability: built once, made searchable, sold per analysis.