5G arrival tees up patent fights in a market set to grow 12,000%

Battles unfolding on several continents over who profits from connected cars, smarthomes, and robotic surgery may dwarf the size and scope of the tech industry’s first worldwide patent war — the one over smartphones.

Automakers are now in court fighting some of the same companies that phonemakers such as Apple had to pay billions of dollars for use of their wireless standards technology. Those companies — Qualcomm, Nokia Oyj, and other telecommunications developers — may reap 5G royalties not only from “talking cars” but from products that will communicate wirelessly being planned in agriculture, medicine, appliances and other sectors.

“So many different