Collaborative Robots Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Collaborative Robots Patents: Mapping the Filers, the Technology Mix and the Open Claim Space
49.0% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 387 of the 789 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below them. Filings rose from 7 in 2017 to a peak of 147 in 2023, then eased to 104 by 2024 — a 15% decline from the 2021 level of 122. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up with filing, so treat the tail of the chart as a floor, not a ceiling.
- 1STRONG FORCE VCN PORTFOLIO 2019 LLC25.1%
- 2STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC10.3%
- 3STRONG FORCE IOT PORTFOLIO 2016 LLC8.5%
- 4LINCOLN GLOBAL INC2.7%
- 5AI INC2.5%
See the full collaborative robots patent landscape 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 collaborative robot patents
Who holds the most collaborative robot patents?
One assignee leads the ranked list with 198 of the 789 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 20 and the tenth-ranked filer at 13. The top five assignees combined account for 387 records, or 49.0% of all records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 58.6%. Below the leading names the ranking thins out quickly into a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, so due diligence should focus heavily on the top names rather than treating the field as evenly spread.
Is collaborative robot patent filing still growing?
Filing activity rose sharply from 7 records in 2017 to a peak of 147 in 2023, but the most recent complete-year comparison shows a decline from 122 filings in 2021 to 104 in 2024, a 15% pullback. That is best read as a cooling from a hot period rather than a field going cold, especially since publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and the 2025-2026 figures in any chart will keep rising as more records publish. Anyone using this trend to time a filing decision should treat the last two years as incomplete rather than as evidence of a slowdown.
What technology areas dominate collaborative robot patents?
Manipulator and robot hardware claims under IPC class B25J appear in 40.4% of the 789 records, making it the single largest technology bucket. Business, commerce and administrative data-processing claims under G06Q are close behind at 37.5%, and AI-based computing claims under G06N cover 26.9% of records. Because a record can carry more than one IPC class, these percentages add up to well over 100%, but the pattern still shows that cobot patents increasingly bundle physical hardware claims with a software or data layer on top.
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 Collaborative Robots Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.