As Sisvel Connect gets underway in Barcelona, our Group President and CEO Mattia Fogliacco reflects on two years of substantial progress – and promises more to come 

By Mattia Fogliacco

This week over 200 people will be in Barcelona to attend Sisvel Connect 2025. They will include representatives from dozens of the entities that make their patents available through our pools, as well as senior executives from companies that license them and other corporate IP leaders. Alongside patent owner meetings, we have put together a one-day conference – Navigating the Changing FRAND World – that will take place on 22^nd October, and which boasts a stellar line-up of speakers. It will be an extremely busy – and hugely enjoyable – three days. 

Sisvel Connect is special. It is not only an opportunity to catch-up with many old friends, but also allows us to update our partners, clients and contacts on everything we have been doing – as well as what is in the pipeline. There is a huge amount to share. 

Since the start of 2024, Sisvel has been busy. Alongside the dealmaking, we have been laying the foundations for an exciting future. To this end, we have redesigned the business and expanded its geographic and strategic scope, all while investing heavily in broadening our experience and skills base.  

Major change 

Looking at the business today compared to just two years ago, so much has changed. Our legal function has significantly expanded, with general counsel Steve Jedlinski putting together an incredibly strong team in both Europe and the US to support the work of the entire Sisvel Group. Another recruit, Jukka Nihtilä – who joined us last September after a stellar career at Nokia – heads up our new business development operation, which is already making major waves.  

Elsewhere, we have Joff Wild, the founder of IAM and its former editor-in-chief, heading up our strategic communications to ensure the world knows what we are doing and what we think. Talking of the latter, Matteo Sabattini was appointed our first-ever executive government affairs adviser in March, with a remit to ensure Sisvel’s voice is clearly heard by policy makers. He has hit the ground running.  

In Asia, we have brought in former Mitsubishi Electric executive Yoshinori Shimizu to run our Tokyo office; while Injoon Song joined us from SK Telecom to head our South Korean operation. Most recently, we were delighted to name Yixiong Zou as Managing Director, China. In this role he will lead a substantial push into the country, including the opening of an office in Shenzhen. These three outstanding individuals are recognised market leaders. We are already feeling the positive impact their appointments have made. 

However, it has not just been a case of external recruitment. There have been important internal moves as well. David Muus, previously in charge of legal operations, became head of licensing programmes in January 2024, with responsibility for ensuring all our pools are operating at the very top of their games. More recently, we announced the creation of win-win tailored dealmaking service Sisvel Bespoke under the leadership of Nick Dudziak, our former Head of Strategy.  

Over the coming months, you can expect to see more eye-catching appointments as our plans for the business continue to take shape. Look out, too, for a growing focus on participation in the standards setting process and R&D led by the world-class team of engineers we have at Sisvel Technology. To our knowledge, no other patent pool operator has anything similar, and we believe this gives us and our clients a major advantage. Thanks to Sisvel Technology we not only know the markets we operate in and the patents that read on them, but also the technology that drives them and how this will develop. As these markets get ever-more complex, such insight is vital to everything we do. 

With that in mind, we have also prioritised deepening our ties to external R&D organisations. Our already close relationship with the brilliant South Korean lab WILUS has been further strengthened, while we are busy building our relationships with the likes of Datang, ETRI, Langbo, KAIST, Sejong University and the Industry Cooperation Group of Kyung Hee University. All of them participate in one or more of our licensing programmes.  

Programmes and deals 

Of course, we never forget that dealmaking and pool management are at the heart of everything we do. Here again, it has been an incredibly busy time. We have seen a surge in the number of licensees our Cellular IoT (C-IoT) and Wi-Fi 6 programmes have attracted, while both have demonstrated their ability to adapt to market needs by announcing reduced royalty rates.  

Last year, in our C-IoT pool we introduced royalties as low as $0.08 per unit for NB-IoT products, while for LTE-M and devices that implement both LTE-M/NB-IoT, a new mid-tier $0.66 royalty rate was created for smart sensor devices with a selling price between $20 and $60 - a 50% rate reduction for the segment. Then in July 2025, the Wi-Fi 6 pool was able to lower its rates for enterprise products to $1 (compliant) and $1.20 (standard), down from a previous $3 (compliant) and $3.60 (standard).  

We have also seen some eye-catching deals involving both pools. For example, our agreements with Nordic Semiconductor and MoMAGIC have simplified their customers’ access to a one-stop licence to SEPs owned by the 36 world class innovators who participate in the C-IoT pool. On the Wi-Fi 6 front, meanwhile, we are proud to have agreed licensing deals with a number of companies, including Cisco, Netgear and Acer, over the last 14 months.  

But it’s not all about C-IoT and Wi-Fi 6. For example, our video coding platform is also gaining significant traction and is now licensing approximately 50% of the AV1 finished product market. That’s been done in just over six years – a major achievement.  

Pools are not all the same 

There is an unfortunate tendency in some quarters to see patent pools as a single, homogenous mass. But in the real world, how pools work is down to the decisions made by those who run them. Different operators have very different approaches. 

Sisvel is driven by a conviction we should operate to the highest standards of transparency, and that constant engagement with all parts of the market is crucial. We strongly believe pools can only be successful if they reflect the needs of both licensors and licensees, possessing the flexibility to adapt when necessary.  

This is why we take the European Commission’s Technology Transfer Guidelines (TTG) as our guiding light. We were pleased – though not surprised – that when the draft amendments to the TTG were released earlier this year, we were already fully compliant with them.  

Our commitment to the highest standards – in offering transparency, delivering essentiality, creating efficiency and providing certainty – will continue to underpin everything we do. We will always innovate and deliver, while having plenty of fun along the way.  

Sisvel is proud to power innovation. We look forward to doing so for many decades to come. To all our partners, clients and friends: thank-you so much for your trust and support; we could not do it without you. For those with whom we have yet to work: hop on board the Sisvel train, we would love to take you on the journey - it is one you will not regret. 

Mattia Fogliacco is Group President and CEO of Sisvel