EDA & Chip Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
EDA and Chip Design Patents: Filing Trends and the Assignees Holding the Ground
45.4% of everything filed sits with just five assignees out of the 18,397 records in scope, so the core claim territory is already crowded before you look at anyone else. Recorded filings ran from 758 in 2017 to a peak of 855 in 2023. The 2021-to-2024 span shows +10% growth (768 to 846) — the clearest complete-year read available, since 2025 and 2026 are still filling in under publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
- 1INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION19.0%
- 2TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD7.1%
- 3SYNOPSYS INC6.7%
- 4GLOBALFOUNDRIES INC6.5%
- 5ARM LTD6.1%
See the full eda & chip design 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 EDA and chip design patents
Who holds the most patents in electronic design automation and chip design?
The assignee ranking behind this dataset is led by one company with 3,502 records, well ahead of the field, with the fifth-ranked assignee at 1,120 and the tenth at 359. Together the top five hold 45.4% of all 18,397 records in scope, and the top ten hold 63.6%. That drop-off from first to tenth place is steep rather than gradual, which is typical of a field anchored by a small number of large EDA software vendors and foundries rather than spread evenly across many mid-sized filers.
Is patent filing in EDA and chip design still growing?
Yes, based on the most recent complete years: filings rose from 768 records in 2021 to 846 in 2024, a 10% increase, with 2023 the highest single year recorded at 855. Filing counts in 2025 and 2026 appear lower in the raw data, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing a patent and its publication, not an actual decline. Any conclusion about a slowdown drawn from the two most recent years alone would be premature.
What technology areas dominate EDA and chip design patent claims?
G06F, the digital data processing class, appears on 70.2% of the 18,397 records in scope, reflecting the heavy weighting toward design-automation software logic — synthesis, timing analysis, verification — built into the search criteria. The semiconductor-device classes H01L and H10D follow at 24.6% and 9.5% respectively. Narrower subclasses including G01R, H10W, H03K, G11C and H10P each sit in the 3.7%-4.6% range, marking areas of comparatively lower claim density.
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 EDA & Chip Design 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.