PatentWorld
By Saerom (Ronnie) Lee (opens in new window), The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
An interactive exploration of 9.36M US patents granted by the USPTO from 1976 to 2025 (through September). Annual grants increased more than five-fold over this period, from approximately 70,000 in 1976 to 374,000 in 2024, as computing and electronics (Cooperative Patent Classification sections G and H) rose from 27% to 57% of utility patent grants.
50 Years of US Patent Grants
Annual patent grants by type, 1976–2025. Utility patents account for over 90% of all grants.
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Explore by Act
Explore the DataThe System
How the patent landscape took shape · 7 chapters
Patent Count
Annual US patent grants (all types) increased more than five-fold from approximately 70,000 in 1976 to 374,000 in 2024, peaking at 393,000 (all types) in 2019. Average (mean) grant pendency peaked at 3.8 years in 2010 before moderating.
Patent Quality
Average claims per patent doubled from 9.4 to a peak of 18.9 in 2005. Forward citations rose to a peak of 6.4 in 2019. System-wide originality rose from 0.09 to 0.25 (section-level averages reached 0.45–0.55 by the 2020s) while generality fell from 0.28 to 0.15.
Patent Fields
CPC sections G and H gained 30 percentage points of share over five decades, rising from 27% to 57% of utility patent grants. The fastest digital technology classes grew by more than 1,000%. Patent grant concentration by assignee remains below conventional thresholds across CPC sections.
Convergence
Multi-section patents rose from approximately 21% to 40% of utility patent grants by 2024. The G-H convergence pair rose from 12.5% to 37.5% of cross-section patents between 1976–1995 and 2011–2025 (through September).
The Language of Innovation
Computing and semiconductor topics grew from 12% to 33% of all patents from 1976 to 2025 (through September). Patent novelty (median entropy) rose 6.4% from 1.97 to 2.10, with an upward trend since the late 1980s.
Patent Law & Policy
The Alice decision (2014) curtailed software patent eligibility, while the AIA (2011) was the most significant reform since 1952. Twenty-one legislative and judicial events from 1980 to 2025 (through September) are associated with observable shifts in filing patterns within one to two years.
Public Investment
Government-funded patents rose from 1,294 in 1980 to 8,359 in 2019 after the Bayh-Dole Act. HHS/NIH leads with 55,587 patents, followed by Defense (43,736) and Energy (33,994).
The Organizations
Firms and institutions driving innovation · 5 chapters
Assignee Composition
Corporate assignees grew from 94% to 99% of US patent grants. Foreign assignees surpassed US-based assignees around 2007. Japan accounts for 1.44 million US patents since 1976.
Organizational Patent Count
IBM leads with 161,888 cumulative grants. Samsung peaked at 9,716 annual grants in 2024. The top 100 organizations hold 32–39% of corporate patents.
Organizational Patent Quality
Amazon holds the highest blockbuster rate at 6.7%. Microsoft leads in average citations at 30.7. Citation half-lives range from 6.3 years (Huawei) to 14.3 years.
Patent Portfolio
50 companies (248 company-decade observations) cluster into 8 industry groups by patent portfolio similarity. Portfolio diversity rose across leading firms, with Mitsubishi Electric reaching a peak Shannon entropy of 7.1 across 287 CPC subclasses. 51 technology pivots detected across 20 companies, which can precede strategic shifts that later become publicly visible.
Interactive Company Profiles
Interactive dashboards for each organization across five analytical dimensions: output trajectories, technology portfolios, citation quality, innovation strategy radar, and grant lag trends. Search and compare any assignee in the dataset.
The Inventors
Who invents and how they differ · 5 chapters
Top Inventors
The top 5% of inventors (by cumulative output) accounted for 63.2% of annual patent grants in 2024. Their annual share rose from 26% in 1976 to 63% in 2024. The most prolific inventor holds 6,709 patents. Citation impact ranges from 10 to 965 average citations among top 100.
Generalist vs. Specialist
Specialist inventors rose from 20% to 48% of the inventor workforce. Generalists earn 9.3 forward citations per patent vs. 8.2 for specialists and score 0.212 on originality vs. 0.165.
Serial Inventors vs. New Entrants
Annual first-time inventor entries peaked at 140,490 in 2019. Only 37–51% of inventors survive past five career years. Productivity rises from 1.4 to 2.1 patents per year.
Gender and Patenting
Female inventor share rose from 2.8% in 1976 to 14.9% in 2025 (through September). All-male teams average 14.2 forward citations, mixed-gender teams 12.6, and all-female teams 9.5; these differences are substantially confounded by field composition. Gender is inferred from inventor names and limited to a binary classification. Among WIPO sectors, Chemistry leads cumulative female representation at 14.6%; among CPC sections, section C reaches 15.7%, with 23.4% in the most recent period.
Team Size and Collaboration
Average patent team size increased from 1.7 to 3.2 inventors, while the solo-inventor share fell from 58% to 23% by 2025 (through September). In 2024, teams of 7+ average 16.7 claims per patent vs. 11.6 for solo inventors.
The Geography
Where innovation happens · 2 chapters
Domestic Geography
California accounts for 23.6% of all US patent grants, producing 992,708 patents — more than the bottom 30 states combined. States exhibit distinctive specialization: Michigan devotes 20.1% to Mechanical Engineering vs. California’s 65.1% in Physics and Electricity.
International Geography
Japan leads foreign filings with 1.45 million US patents, while China grew from 299 filings in 2000 to 30,695 in 2024. In the 2020s decade (2020 through September 2025), the US leads with approximately 164,000 patents granted (by primary assignee country) and 18.4 average claims. Countries with rapidly growing patent volumes tend to exhibit lower average claim counts, a pattern that may reflect differences in patent drafting conventions, technology field composition, or strategic filing approaches.
The Mechanics
How knowledge flows through organizations, inventors, and places · 3 chapters
Organizational Mechanics
11 of 20 major filers keep exploration below 5%. Balanced firms are associated with blockbuster rates 2.3x higher than specialists. 618 organizations form distinct industry clusters in the co-patenting network.
Inventor Mechanics
632 prolific inventors form 1,236 co-invention ties. 143,524 inventor movements (consecutive patents at different assignees within 5 years) flow among 50 organizations. International mobility rose from 1.3% to 5.1%, with the US involved in 77.6% of all cross-border flows.
Geographic Mechanics
International co-invention increased from 1.0% in 1976 to 10.0% in 2025 (through September). US-China co-invention grew from 77 patents in 2000 to 2,749 in 2024.
Deep Dives
Established and emerging technology domains · 12 chapters
3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing
Top-four-firm concentration in 3D printing patents declined from 36% in 2005 to 11% by 2024. The decline coincided with the expiration of key FDM patents in 2009 and a subsequent increase in new entrants. Later entrants (2010s cohort) patent at 11.2 patents per year compared to 8.3 for 1990s entrants.
Agricultural Technology
Agricultural technology patent velocity more than quadrupled from 7.4 patents per year (1970s entrants) to 32.9 (2000s entrants), coinciding with the precision agriculture revolution. Top-four concentration declined from 46.7% in 2014 to 32.8% by 2025 (through September).
Artificial Intelligence
AI patent grants grew 5.7-fold from 5,201 in 2012 to 29,624 in 2023, reaching 9.4% of all US patent grants. IBM leads with 16,781 AI patents, followed by Google (7,775) and Samsung (6,195).
Autonomous Vehicles & ADAS
Autonomous vehicle patent velocity rose from 15.9 patents per year (1990s entrants) to 28.6 (2010s entrants), a 1.8-fold increase. Subfield diversity reached near-maximum entropy of 0.97 by 2025 (through September). Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Waymo lead the field.
Biotechnology & Gene Editing
Biotechnology achieved the lowest top-four concentration among all advanced technology domains studied, declining from 13.5% in 2007 to 4.6% by 2025 (through September). Subfield diversity nearly tripled from 0.32 in 1976 to 0.94 by 2025 (through September), a pattern consistent with the sequential emergence of new subfields from recombinant DNA to CRISPR-Cas9.
Blockchain & Decentralized Systems
Blockchain patent filings peaked in 2022 and subsequently declined, the only advanced technology domain in the study to reverse course. Top-four concentration rose to 26.3% during the 2018 boom before declining to 14.0% by 2024.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity top-four concentration declined from 32.4% in 1980 to 9.4% by 2025 (through September), consistent with broad-based entry across the field. Patent velocity reached 105.8 patents per year for 2010s entrants, a 1.4-fold increase over 1970s entrants. Network security surpassed cryptography as the dominant subfield around 2003.
Digital Health & Medical Devices
Digital health patent velocity jumped 3.4-fold from 22.5 patents per year (1970s entrants) to 77.5 (2010s entrants). Philips (2,909 patents), Medtronic (2,302), and Intuitive Surgical (1,994) lead the field. Subfield diversity rose from 0.48 in 1976 to 0.92 by 2025 (through September).
Green Innovation
Green patents show a 1.8-fold velocity increase from 1970s to 2000s entrants (68 to 122 patents per year). Battery and EV patents reached 7,363 and 5,818 grants respectively by 2024, surpassing renewable energy at 3,453. Samsung (13,771), Toyota (12,636), and GE (10,812) lead.
Quantum Computing
Quantum computing remains among the most concentrated advanced technology domains alongside agricultural technology and semiconductors, with the top four firms holding 28.4% of patents in 2025 (through September), down from 76.9% in 2003. It is one of the few domains where early entrants (1990s cohort) patent faster than later entrants, a pattern consistent with high hardware IP barriers to entry.
Semiconductors
Semiconductor patents exhibit rising concentration since 2010, with top-four-firm share increasing from 15.6% in 2010 to 32.6% in 2023 — the primary advanced technology domain showing sustained recent consolidation. Entry velocity plateaued at 197 patents per year for both 1990s and 2010s cohorts.
Space Technology
Space technology top-four concentration fluctuated between 4.9% and 36.7%, a pattern consistent with the transition from government-dominated to commercial-driven innovation. Boeing, ViaSat, and Hughes Network Systems lead, with satellite communications now the dominant subfield.