Cloud Computing Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 24.3% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees combine for 54,343 of 223,923 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants beneath them.
- Filing cooled after 2021. Filings fell from 1,519 in 2021 to 1,015 in 2024, a 33% decline over that three-year span, after peaking at 1,726 in 2019.
- Claim density sits in two subclasses. G06F and H04L together account for the bulk of classified activity, while AI-adjacent and video-adjacent classes remain comparatively lightly claimed.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,519 records) with 2024 (1,015) — 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 223,923 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the cloud computing patent record shows
Cloud computing patent activity spans virtual machine management, workload scheduling, resource allocation and service-instance orchestration, with 223,923 records in scope for this search across 2015 through the current data cut-off. Filing rose through the late 2010s, peaked in 2019 at 1,726, and has since eased. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years understate true filing activity and should be read with that lag in mind.
Ownership is concentrated but not locked down: the leading assignee holds 22,417 records, yet the ranked leaders list runs to 100 companies before the tail thins into single-digit filers. That combination — a strong leader group plus a wide field of smaller filers — is what defines the competitive shape of this space.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 223,923-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how activity distributes across IPC subclasses.
A cooling filing trend since the 2019 peak
Filings ran from 1,446 in 2017 to a peak of 1,726 in 2019, then declined to 1,015 by 2024 — a 33% drop from the 2021 level of 1,519. The final years on the chart (2025-2026) are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
Classification concentrates in two subclasses
G06F (electric digital data processing) covers 7.1% of the 223,923 records and H04L (digital information transmission) covers 4.0%. Business-process, AI-model, wireless-network, control-systems, image-processing and video-communication classes each sit at 0.4% or below, marking them as comparatively under-claimed relative to the core computing and transmission classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 223,923 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cloud Computing Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cloud computing patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this dataset
Virtual machine compliance checking in cloud environments (US20170134420A1)
A method of transferring a virtual machine between a virtualized computing system and a cloud computing system includes determining that a virtual machine is to be transferred, identifying a connection between a resource in the virtualized computing system and a resource in the cloud computing system, and identifying files and file portions for transfer. At least one compliance check is executed on each file portion before the transfer completes.Filed by VMware, published 2017-05-11.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090276771A1 | Globally Distributed Utility Computing Cloud | 2,863 |
| 2 | US20070198656A1 | Methods and servers for establishing a connection between a client system and a virtual machine executing in … | 1,211 |
| 3 | US20130268357A1 | Methods and/or systems for an online and/or mobile privacy and/or security encryption technologies used in cl… | 1,082 |
| 4 | US20120185913A1 | System and method for a cloud computing abstraction layer with security zone facilities | 1,048 |
| 5 | US20130152047A1 | System for distributed software quality improvement | 963 |
| 6 | US20070171921A1 | Methods and systems for interacting, via a hypermedium page, with a virtual machine executing in a terminal s… | 869 |
| 7 | US20210144517A1 | Multi-entity resource, security, and service management in edge computing deployments | 843 |
| 8 | US20110016214A1 | System and method of brokering cloud computing resources | 806 |
| 9 | US8429630B2 | Globally distributed utility computing cloud | 794 |
| 10 | US20090300210A1 | Methods and systems for load balancing in cloud-based networks | 790 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
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Reading the ranking and the IPC composition together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is not.
A strong leader group, not a monopoly
The top five assignees combine for 54,343 records, 24.3% of all records in scope, while the top ten add up to 34.1%. That leaves the majority of filing activity spread across a ranked list of 100 companies and beyond, so freedom-to-operate work cannot stop at the leader group.
Volume has eased from its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 1,726 in 2019 and had fallen to 1,015 by 2024, a 33% decline from the 2021 level of 1,519. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, the 2025-2026 figures are not yet reliable evidence of a continued slide.
Two subclasses carry most of the claim density
G06F and H04L together carry the bulk of classified filings, at 7.1% and 4.0% of the 223,923 records respectively. Every other subclass tracked here sits at 0.4% or below, which is a wide gap rather than a gradual taper.
Co-filing clusters around large corporate families
The strongest co-assignee pairings link a single parent's regional entities rather than spanning unrelated companies, indicating that cross-entity IP management inside large groups drives most co-assignment here rather than external collaboration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cloud computing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where activity is shifting
The leader group is dominated by large enterprise software, cloud infrastructure and telecom vendors, with year-over-year momentum varying sharply even among the top names.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 22,417 records, more than double the fifth-place holder's 5,351. That gap defines the shape of the ranking: one dominant filer, a cluster of large enterprise vendors behind it, and then a long tail.
Huawei's filings accelerated sharply
Huawei's latest-year filings rose 250% year over year, the only clear upward move among the assignees tracked for recent momentum, even as most other large filers pulled back.
Broad pullback among established leaders
Several established leaders, including IBM and Oracle, show sharp year-over-year declines in their latest-year filing counts. That pattern is consistent with the overall post-2021 cooling in filing volume rather than being specific to any one company.
A wide field beyond the leaders
The ranking returned by the dataset runs to 100 companies, not a curated top handful, and filing activity thins out well before reaching the bottom of that list. Competitive monitoring needs to look past the five or ten most obvious names.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Weizi Inc. | 12 | -84% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 7 | +250% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 3 | -90% |
| Citrix Systems, Inc. | 3 | -79% |
| Oracle International Corporation | 2 | -88% |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 1 | -94% |
| Amazon Technologies, Inc. | 1 | -95% |
| VMware, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace scouting, or competitor tracking.
Map claims against the leader group
With 34.1% of records held by the top ten assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start with those portfolios before widening to the ranked tail.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches
Subclasses below G06F and H04L in filing density, including AI-model and video-communication classes, carry lighter claim coverage and may offer clearer paths to file.
Run a whitespace search in EurekaWatch momentum, not just size
Year-over-year swings, such as Huawei's rise against broader pullbacks, can signal shifting competitive focus well before portfolio size changes.
Set up momentum alerts in EurekaCommon questions about cloud computing patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 22,417 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 5,351. The top five assignees combined hold 54,343 records, 24.3% of the 223,923 records in scope, and the top ten hold 34.1%. Beyond that group the ranking extends to 100 companies, with filing volume tapering steadily rather than dropping off sharply after the leaders.
Filing peaked at 1,726 records in 2019 and had declined to 1,015 by 2024, a 33% drop from the 2021 level of 1,519. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of a continued decline. The safest reading is that filing activity cooled from its 2019 peak through 2024, with the most recent trend still uncertain.
Classification data shows G06F (electric digital data processing) covering 7.1% of the 223,923 records and H04L (digital information transmission) covering 4.0%, making these the two densest subclasses. Business-process, AI-model, wireless-network, control-systems, image-processing and video-communication classes each account for 0.4% of records or less. That gap indicates core computing and data-transmission claims are heavily occupied while adjacent technical branches carry comparatively light coverage.
The clearest signal comes from IPC subclasses with low record shares relative to G06F and H04L, including classes tied to AI-model computing, video and pictorial communication, and control and regulating systems. These branches sit at 0.1% to 0.3% of the 223,923 records, suggesting lighter claim density around AI-driven workload placement, video-stream resource scheduling and control-loop compute orchestration. A useful next step is a targeted search within one of these subclasses against the specific claim language a filer intends to use.
It is concentrated at the top but not dominated by a handful of firms: the top five assignees hold 24.3% of the 223,923 records and the top ten hold 34.1%, while the ranked list runs to 100 companies. Recent-year momentum also varies widely, with some leaders such as Huawei showing sharp year-over-year increases while others, including IBM and Oracle, show steep pullbacks. That combination of a strong leader group and shifting momentum means competitive tracking needs to look beyond static portfolio size.
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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.