Database Systems Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Database Systems Patents: Filing Trends, Leaders and Open Claim Space
33.3% of the field sits with five companies. 7,380 of 22,159 records in scope trace to the top five assignees — the rest is a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Volume rose from 1,004 records in 2017 to a peak of 1,419 in 2022, then held roughly flat — 1,178 in 2021 against 1,147 in 2024, a -3% move across that span. The 2025-2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a drop.
- 1INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION7.9%
- 2CISCO TECHNOLOGY INC7.3%
- 3ORACLE INT CORP7.0%
- 4SAP SE5.6%
- 5SNOWFLAKE INC5.5%
See the full database systems 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 database systems patents
How many database systems patents have been filed recently?
Across the scope tracked here, 22,159 records were published between 2015 and the current data cut-off, covering database management systems, data storage engines, query indexing and record-storage claims. Filing volume rose from 1,004 records in 2017 to a peak of 1,419 in 2022, then held roughly flat through 2024. The 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as a decline.
Who are the leading assignees in database systems patents?
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies by record volume, with the top five accounting for 33.3% of all 22,159 records in scope and the top ten accounting for 46.0%. The leading assignee alone holds 1,742 records, well ahead of the rest of the field, while positions two through five cluster more closely together. Below the top ten, the ranking thins into a long tail of companies filing at much lower volume.
Is the database systems patent field still growing?
Filing volume peaked at 1,419 records in 2022 and has since settled to a level close to, but slightly below, that peak — 1,178 records in 2021 versus 1,147 in 2024, a -3% change over that span. That reads as a plateau at a high base rather than genuine decline. Because the most recent one to two years of any patent dataset are undercounted due to publication lag, any apparent drop after 2024 should be treated with caution rather than as evidence of a shrinking field.
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 Database Systems 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.