Genetic Circuit Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Genetic Circuit Design Patents: Mapping the Field
Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 42.5% of all 332 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 59.6% — a field with a dense core and a long single-filer tail. Filings ran from 29 in 2017 to a peak of 44 in 2021, then fell to 7 by 2024 — an 84% decline over that three-year span. The 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be treated as confirming a continued fall.
- 1SEATTLE CHILDRENS HOSPITAL (DBA SEATTLE CHILDRENS RES INST)52
- 2MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH29
- 3CDG THERAPEUTICS INC29
- 4RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA18
- 5THE WISTAR INST OF ANATOMY & BIOLOGY13
See the full genetic circuit design 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
Frequently asked questions
Who are the leading patent holders in genetic circuit design?
The ranked assignee list shows a single dominant filer with 52 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 13 and the tenth-place holder at 11. The top five assignees combined hold 42.5% of all 332 records in scope, and the top ten hold 59.6%. This concentration means a small group of research institutions and universities control much of the field’s foundational transcriptional-regulator and logic-gate circuit claim space, while the remaining assignees each hold only a handful of records.
Is genetic circuit design patent filing still growing?
No — filing peaked at 44 records in 2021 and had fallen to 7 by 2024, an 84% decline over that three-year span, which is the most recent period that can be treated as reliably complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are still low, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a confirmed continued drop. Anyone using this trend to size the field should treat the 2021-2024 window as the trustworthy signal and wait for later years to mature before drawing conclusions about the present.
What patent classes cover genetic circuit design technology?
The two largest IPC subclasses are C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering), covering 48.8% of the 332 records, and A61K (medicinal preparations), covering 43.7%. C07K peptides and proteins, C12Q enzyme/DNA measuring methods, and G01N material analysis also appear frequently. Bioinformatics-specific class G16B and digital-processing class G06F are comparatively thin, at 12.3% and 7.5% respectively, suggesting most circuit-design claims are filed as biological or therapeutic subject matter rather than as standalone computational methods.
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 Genetic Circuit Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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.