Automated Program Repair Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Automated Program Repair Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, and Where the Gaps Sit
Concentrated at the top. the five largest assignees hold 50.9% of all 114 records in scope, and the top ten hold 66.7% — a narrow group already controls most of the filed claim space. Filings rose from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2020, then eased; the 2021-to-2024 span fell 30% (10 to 7 records). 2025 and 2026 are shown as reported but are not yet complete due to publication lag.
- 1THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIV IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK27
- 2FUJITSU LTD8
- 3INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION8
- 4HITACHI LTD8
- 5TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD7
See the full automated program repair analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about automated program repair patents
How many patents exist for automated program repair?
The tracked dataset contains 114 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, spanning fault localization, patch generation, patch ranking and test-suite validation. This count reflects a specific search scope rather than every patent ever filed touching program repair, so related filings classified outside this scope will not appear. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years are undercounted in this total.
Who are the leading patent holders in automated program repair?
Filing is concentrated: the five largest assignees together hold 50.9% of the 114 records in scope, and the ten largest hold 66.7%. The single largest assignee holds 27 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 7. The ranking covers 43 companies total, so it is a full but modest-sized field rather than a top-50 or top-100 cut of a much larger set.
Is automated program repair patent filing growing or slowing?
Filing peaked at 18 records in 2020 and declined afterward; the last fully comparable span, 2021 to 2024, shows a 30% drop from 10 to 7 records. That does not necessarily mean genuine interest is falling, because 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to the normal 18-month gap between filing and publication. A clearer read on the current trajectory will only be possible once those years finish publishing.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Program Repair covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.