One assignee leads the ranked field with 394 records, more than five times the count held by the tenth-ranked assignee at 42. The top five assignees combined account for 38.4% of all 2,164 records in scope, and the top ten account for 52.6%. That leaves roughly half the field distributed across a long tail of 90 further ranked assignees, each typically holding a small number of families, so the field is concentrated at the top but not closed to new entrants.

Annual filings rose from 62 in 2017 to a peak of 185 in 2021, then eased to 130 by 2024 — a 30% decline over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing activity, since recent filings have not all published yet. The fairest reading is a field that cooled from an unusually active 2021 rather than one in structural decline.

C12N, covering microorganisms and genetic engineering methods, appears on 90.9% of the 2,164 records in scope, making it by far the dominant class. A61K medicinal preparations follows at 41.5%, with C07K peptides and proteins at 20.2% and A61P therapeutic activity at 17.1%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100%, which is expected and reflects how differentiation method claims are typically paired with formulation or therapeutic-use claims.