Container Checkpoint Restore Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (2,004 records) with 2024 (1,343) — 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 20,795 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the data covers
This landscape draws on 20,795 published records matching container checkpoint restore filings and closely related terms, spanning 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 2,127 records and has since moved through a multi-year adjustment; 2021 filings of 2,004 compare with 1,343 in 2024, a -33% change over that span. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity and should be read as still filling in.
The assignee ranking returned by the underlying dataset covers 100 companies, not a curated top-50 or top-100 list — it is the full ranking the data endpoint returns. Reading it alongside the IPC composition below shows where claim density is heaviest and where the recorded activity thins out into single-filer territory.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 20,795 records: how filings have moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A 2019 peak followed by a multi-year pullback
Filings ran from 1,310 in 2017 to a peak of 2,127 in 2019, then eased to 2,004 by 2021 and 1,343 by 2024 — a -33% move over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because of publication lag and should not be read as a continuing decline on their own.
Biosciences classes dominate; infrastructure classes are a minority
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears in 56.6% of records and C07K (peptides & proteins) in 40.0%, reflecting how broadly the search string pulls in adjacent biosciences filings. G06F (electric digital data processing), the class closest to container orchestration itself, appears in 14.4% of records — a reminder that the pure infrastructure slice of this corpus is narrower than the headline totals suggest.
Shares are the percentage of the 20,795 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Containers & Orchestration: Container Checkpoint Restore Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaA recent filing that shows where claims are heading
Checkpoint and restore based startup of executor nodes of a distributed computing engine for processing queries
The filing describes starting an executor node for a distributed query engine, running a warm-up set of queries against it, then checkpointing the warmed-up node into a stored image keyed to a specific hardware and memory configuration. New executor nodes are brought up by restoring the matching stored image rather than repeating the warm-up sequence, which the filing frames as a way to cut executor startup time.Filed by Databricks; published 2025-02-18.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6519571B1 | Dynamic customer profile management | 2,372 |
| 2 | US6571282B1 | Block-based communication in a communication services patterns environment | 2,353 |
| 3 | US20120069131A1 | Reality alternate | 2,111 |
| 4 | WO2012145493A1 | Antibodies and other molecules that bind b7-h1 and PD-1 | 2,068 |
| 5 | US6601233B1 | Business components framework | 1,860 |
| 6 | US20080177994A1 | System and method for improving the efficiency, comfort, and/or reliability in Operating Systems, such as for… | 1,735 |
| 7 | US6473794B1 | System for establishing plan to test components of web based framework by displaying pictorial representation… | 1,732 |
| 8 | US7100195B1 | Managing user information on an e-commerce system | 1,649 |
| 9 | US6289382B1 | System, method and article of manufacture for a globally addressable interface in a communication services pa… | 1,527 |
| 10 | US7356679B1 | Computer image capture, customization and deployment | 1,493 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited; treat this table as a signal of historical influence, not of current commercial weight.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and mix mean for filing decisions
The ranking and the IPC mix point to a field where a small group of filers hold a real share of the record base, while the technology itself spans well beyond container infrastructure alone.
The front of the field is dense, then thins fast
The leader holds 907 records and fifth place holds 615, so the drop-off inside the top five is gradual. By tenth place the count is down to 308, and the top 10 combined still only reach 27.0% of all records in scope — meaning the remaining three-quarters of filing activity sits outside this ranked group entirely.
Core infrastructure claims are a minority slice
A61K, C07K and A61P together dominate the class counts, which tells you this corpus is pulled broadly across biosciences as well as computing. G06F, the class most directly tied to checkpoint/restore infrastructure, sits at 14.4% — useful context before assuming every record here is a container-orchestration claim.
Activity has cooled from its 2019 peak, not stopped
The 2019 peak of 2,127 records was the high point of a run that began climbing from 1,310 in 2017. The move from 2,004 filings in 2021 to 1,343 in 2024 is a real three-year decline, but 2025 and 2026 counts are too new to read as a continuation given the usual publication lag.
Filing strategy leans heavily on the US and PCT routes
The United States receives more than double the filings of the next office, WIPO's PCT route at 2,775, with EPO close behind at 2,689. Australia, Israel and Canada each register in the low thousands, suggesting most applicants treat the US as the primary market and use PCT or EPO for broader coverage rather than filing natively across many national offices.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to containers & orchestration: container checkpoint restore patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The figures above show where filing activity concentrates and where it thins out. The next step is usually a closer read of specific claim language.
Check freedom to operate against the densest classes
A61K, C07K and A61P carry the heaviest record counts in this corpus. Before filing near those classes, a claim-level search against the specific assignees active there is worth the time.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack the ranked leaders' recent filings
The top 10 assignees hold 27.0% of all records; watching their filing cadence year over year is a faster signal of where the field is heading than the aggregate trend alone.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches
G06F's 14.4% share suggests infrastructure-specific claims are thinner than the aggregate numbers imply. A branch-by-branch gap analysis can surface where a first claim still has room.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset covers 20,795 published records matching container checkpoint restore and closely related search terms, spanning from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. That figure includes records across a broad IPC mix, not only pure container-infrastructure filings, so the number should be read as the scope of the search rather than a narrow count of orchestration-specific patents. Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 2,127 records before easing in subsequent years.
The dataset's assignee ranking covers 100 companies, with the leader holding 907 records and the tenth-ranked filer holding 308. The top 10 combined account for 27.0% of all 20,795 records in scope, which means a majority of filing activity comes from outside this ranked group. This is a field with a dense front rank but a long tail of smaller filers, rather than a market dominated by one or two players.
Filings rose from 1,310 in 2017 to a peak of 2,127 in 2019, then declined to 2,004 by 2021 and 1,343 by 2024 — a real -33% change over that three-year window. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around eighteen months, so those years should not yet be read as confirming a continued decline. The honest read is a cooling trend through 2024, with the most recent data too young to interpret.
US12229137B1, filed by Databricks and published in February 2025, covers starting up an executor node for a distributed query engine, running warm-up queries against it, checkpointing the warmed node into a stored image tied to a specific hardware and memory configuration, and restoring that image to bring up new executor nodes faster. It is a representative example of how checkpoint/restore techniques are being applied to distributed compute infrastructure rather than to container orchestration alone. Anyone building similar warm-start mechanisms for distributed query engines should review its specific claim scope directly.
A61K, covering medicinal preparations, appears in 56.6% of the 20,795 records, followed by C07K (peptides and proteins) at 40.0% and A61P (therapeutic activity of compounds) at 38.8%. G06F, the class most directly tied to computing infrastructure and closest to container checkpoint/restore mechanics, appears in 14.4% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed or compared as if they were mutually exclusive.
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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.