"People are getting reimbursed for the research and development they did in a very reasonable fashion," Syputa said. Probably as a result of that, the added cost of LTE capability on smartphones is modest, he said.

Those cross-licensing deals took place without organized pools run by administrators like Via Licensing. Mobile network giant Ericsson, for one, has said it won't put its LTE patents in any pools. However, pools can be beneficial to smaller holders of patents, Syputa said.

Mobile operators "do tend to have some interesting stuff, and they do tend to do some interesting R&D," Jarich of Current Analysis said. In addition, because carriers are the major buyers of network gear, they tend to be players that other patent holders don't want to cross, he added.

The IDG News Service