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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/cloud-and-network-security-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Cloud & Network SecurityCloud and network security patents: who is filing, what they claim, and where the field is still open
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 1,724 records and has since eased to 1,339 by 2024, a 22% pullback over that three-year span — not a collapse, but a cooling from the post-pandemic surge.
- The leader holds 1,227 records yet the top 5 assignees together account for just 14.9% of all 35,350 records in scope, so no single filer controls the field.
- H04L and G06F dominate the technology mix covering 41.7% and 27.5% of records respectively, while AI-flavoured G06N claims sit at a comparatively thin 3.6%.
35.4K
Published Records
15%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-22%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,724 records) with 2024 (1,339) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 35,350 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent filings at the intersection of cloud infrastructure security and network security — virtual machines, compute resource allocation, workload scheduling, service instances, authentication tokens and encryption keys read against cloud and network security claim language. It spans 35,350 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, drawn primarily from US, European, PCT and Commonwealth filing offices.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity; 2024 is treated here as the last complete year for growth comparisons.
Filing activity by year, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 35,350-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how the underlying technology splits across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 1,174 in 2017 to a peak of 1,724 in 2021, then eased to 1,339 by 2024 — a 22% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under normal publication lag and should not be read as a further drop.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H04L (digital information transmission) and G06F (electric digital data processing) together anchor the field, appearing in 41.7% and 27.5% of records respectively. Wireless networking (H04W, 7.9%), business-process claims (G06Q, 4.4%) and AI-model claims (G06N, 3.6%) trail well behind, with video/control-systems classes each under 1.5%. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 35,350 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative and most-cited filings
Representative filing
US10903999B1 — Protecting PII data from man-in-the-middle attacks in a network
ZSCALER, INC.
Systems and methods include receiving a request from a client with the request including an authentication token as a request header, wherein the authentication token includes a first encryption key, a second encryption key, and a timestamp; decrypting the authentication token with a private key of the server to obtain the first encryption key, the second encryption key, and the timestamp; and validating the request based on the first encryption key and the timestamp, and, if valid, decrypting payload of the request with the second encryption key.Filed by Zscaler, granted 2021-01-26 — a good illustration of how token-based, dual-key authentication claims are drafted in this space.
Most-cited records in this landscape
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5892900A | Systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection | 6,074 |
| 2 | US6850252B1 | Intelligent electronic appliance system and method | 4,058 |
| 3 | US20090254572A1 | Digital information infrastructure and method | 2,824 |
| 4 | US6571282B1 | Block-based communication in a communication services patterns environment | 2,353 |
| 5 | US20120069131A1 | Reality alternate | 2,110 |
| 6 | US5778395A | System for backing up files from disk volumes on multiple nodes of a computer network | 2,052 |
| 7 | US5982891A | Systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection | 1,903 |
| 8 | US6601233B1 | Business components framework | 1,859 |
| 9 | US5910987A | Systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection | 1,785 |
| 10 | US20100250497A1 | Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) hardened information infrastructure with extractor, cloud dispersal, secure stora… | 1,773 |
Citation counts are strongest for older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting or clearing a new filing in this space.
Concentration
14.9% top-5 share
of 35,350 records
The top of the field is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 1,227 records and the top 5 together hold 14.9% of all records in scope. That leaves the large majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, so freedom-to-operate analysis cannot stop at the household names.
Top 10 combined reach 23.7% of records.
Momentum
-22% (2021→2024)
peak-year comparison
Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak, not stalled
Volume rose steadily to a 2021 peak of 1,724 records before easing to 1,339 by 2024. That is a real pullback from an unusually active period, not a sign the technology is exhausted — several leading assignees show double-digit percentage declines in the most recent tracked year, consistent with the field maturing rather than closing.
2025–2026 figures are still incomplete under normal publication lag.
Composition
41.7% H04L
of 35,350 records
Transmission-layer claims still carry the most weight
H04L (digital information transmission) and G06F (data processing) between them touch the majority of records, meaning core protocol- and processing-layer claim space is dense. AI-model claims under G06N sit at only 3.6%, which is thin relative to how much AI is discussed in cloud security marketing.
Shares sum above 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
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Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span infrastructure vendors, hyperscalers and security specialists, but co-filing activity is sparse and momentum among the largest filers is now negative across the board.
Leader
1,227 records
single assignee
One clear leader, no runaway monopoly
The top-ranked assignee's 1,227 records outpace the field, but the gap to fifth place (884) and tenth place (495) narrows quickly, indicating a competitive middle tier rather than a single gatekeeper.
Ranking covers 100 companies, the full set the data endpoint returns.
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
across the dataset
Co-filing is rare and mostly internal
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest links are between a single organisation's own subsidiaries or an in-house inventor pairing, not cross-company alliances. Joint development deals leave little patent trace here.
Strongest pair: 12 shared filings between related entities of one filer.
Momentum
-57% to -92% YoY
leading assignees, latest year
Every major filer is pulling back at once
The largest assignees by volume each show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest tracked year, from roughly -57% to -92%. Because that year is still incomplete under publication lag, this reads as a data-timing effect layered on top of a genuine post-2021 cooling, not evidence that any one competitor has exited the space.
Compare against the 2021→2024 complete-year trend for context.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Oracle International Corp | 12 | -80% |
| Palo Alto Networks Inc | 7 | -84% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 6 | -57% |
| Cisco Technology Inc | 5 | -76% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 2 | -89% |
| SOPHOS LTD | 1 | -92% |
| FORESCOUT TECHNOLOGIES INC | 1 | -67% |
| Intel Corp | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this from here
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is clearance, drafting or competitive tracking.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the long tail
With the top 5 assignees holding only 14.9% of records, clearance work needs to reach well past the named leaders into the ranked field's middle and lower tiers.
Explore assignees in Eureka →Watch the under-claimed branches before they fill in
Thin coverage in AI-driven scheduling security and cross-cloud token federation suggests room for a first-mover claim, but that window narrows as the core classes stay dense.
Build a white-space search in Eureka →Track momentum, not just headline volume
Every leading assignee shows a year-on-year pullback in the most recent tracked year; layering that against the 2021 peak gives a clearer read on real competitive intent than a single year's count.
Set up assignee alerts in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 1,227 records, well ahead of the field, but the gap narrows quickly through the ranking — fifth place holds 884 and tenth place 495. The top 5 assignees combined account for only 14.9% of all 35,350 records in scope, so leadership at the top does not translate into control of the field. A freedom-to-operate review needs to look well beyond the largest names.
Filing volume peaked in 2021 at 1,724 records and eased to 1,339 by 2024, a 22% decline over that three-year span. That is a real pullback from an unusually active period rather than a sign of exhaustion, and it should not be read as evidence the field is closing. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Digital information transmission (H04L) appears in 41.7% of the 35,350 records, and electric digital data processing (G06F) appears in 27.5%, making these two IPC subclasses the backbone of the field. Wireless networking (H04W) and AI-model claims (G06N) trail well behind at 7.9% and 3.6% respectively. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should not be treated as a strict pie chart.
Relative to the dense transmission and data-processing classes, areas like AI-driven workload scheduling security, ephemeral service-instance key lifecycle management, and cross-cloud authentication token federation carry comparatively thin filing density. Control-system overlap (G05B) and pictorial/video-stream security within cloud delivery are also under 1.5% of records each. These are not guaranteed-clear areas, but they warrant a closer prior-art search before assuming the space is occupied.
Rarely. Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the entire dataset, and the strongest of them link a filer to its own subsidiary or an in-house inventor rather than an external partner. This suggests that joint development or cross-licensing arrangements in this field are not typically reflected in shared patent ownership, so co-filing data is a weak signal for mapping industry alliances here.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Cloud & Network Security Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.