Anaqua, the provider of innovation and intellectual property (IP) management technology solutions and services, today released its annual analysis of USPTO data using its AcclaimIP patent analytics software, which found that patent grants increased by nearly 6% to 368,597 over the past 12 months.
“The increase in global patent activity points to an encouraging sign of companies’ continued investment in emerging technologies,” said Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua. “Our market leading AcclaimIP solution helps clients search over 165 million patents helping them to analyze IP in order to determine patentability and assess the competitive patent landscape. We’re proud to support the world’s most innovative companies in making better decisions about their business.”
Most Innovative Companies
With 10,427 granted patents, Samsung Electronics continues to lead the most innovative companies list, with growth areas including multi-device organic light emitting solid state devices, electric data processing interface arrangements, and plural common substrate semiconductor arrangements.
The other top five most innovative companies include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) with 4,127 granted patents, LG Corp with 3,987, Qualcomm with 3,474, and Apple with 3,437 granted patents.
Apple’s focus on multi-use digital information transmission path technology, wireless communication local resource management, and other wireless-related innovations led to its entry into the top five list.
Most Innovative Countries
U.S.-based companies continue to lead all countries globally in the total number of granted U.S. patents at 157,955, despite an almost 3% decrease from the previous 12-month period. The USPTO analysis found that APAC-based countries continue to be well represented in the top five including Japan, followed by China, and South Korea. Germany, in fifth place, led European countries.
Top Innovation Areas
Based on the most granted patents, the top technology fields include semiconductor technology, artificial intelligence (AI), medical-related patents, 5G, and virtual reality (VR). The rest of the top ten list includes program control units, unauthorized user detection technologies, chemical-related technologies, wireless, and electric vehicles.
Global semiconductor innovation led to the sector’s third year of growth in overall patent grant volume, up from 49,831 in 2021 to 67,118 in 2024. The top companies contributing to this increase with the most U.S. granted patents include Samsung Electronics, TSMC, Intel, BOE, and LG Corp.
AI patent grants grew in overall volume for the fourth year – increasing from 34,544 in 2020 to 54,022 in 2024 – with innovations in biological-related AI, machine learning AI, image or voice recognition AI, scene-specific elements of image/video AI, and general image analysis.
“Our annual patent report serves as a benchmark to monitor and track evolving trends in patent activity from the largest global organizations and emerging technology areas,” said Shayne Phillips, Director of Analytics Solutions at Anaqua. “Increases in semiconductor and AI granted patents in particular signal a healthy invention ecosystem that spans industries.”
