Hardware Security Module Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentration at the top. The five most active filers account for 44.0% of all 309 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Filing accelerated sharply, then cooled statistically. Filings rose from 5 in 2021 to 18 in 2024 (+260%), though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in as publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
- Classification skews toward general computing, not automotive-specific classes. H04L and G06F cover roughly half of all records each, while the vehicle-specific B60R class touches only 4.2% of the 309 records.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (18) — 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 309 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps 309 published records matching cryptographic secure-element and hardware security module claims — key storage, cryptographic acceleration, secure boot chains, key provisioning and lifecycle key rotation — filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026. The search string deliberately spans both dedicated automotive hardware security modules and the broader secure-element category, since much of the underlying cryptographic architecture is shared across payment, mobile and vehicle implementations before it is adapted into an automotive form factor.
Because the corpus mixes secure-element patents with automotive-specific ones, the technology composition below shows general digital-transmission and data-processing classes dominating over vehicle-specific classification. That is a useful signal in itself: it suggests the automotive application layer is still a smaller, more recent slice of a much larger secure-element prior art base, and a filer entering this space is competing against claim language written for payments and mobile devices as much as against automotive-specific art.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 309-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from 26 in 2017 to a peak of 28 in 2022, then rose sharply in the 2021-2024 window (5 to 18, +260%). Counts for 2025 and 2026 are partial because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, so the apparent tail-off in the most recent years should not be read as a slowdown.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H04L (digital information transmission) and G06F (electric digital data processing) each cover close to half of the 309 records, with G06Q (business/commerce data processing) close behind at 38.8%. Vehicle-specific classification (B60R) appears in only 4.2% of records, and data-recognition class G06K in 3.6% — both comparatively under-filled relative to the core cryptographic classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 309 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hardware Security Modules for Vehicles with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
WO2025172683A1 — Connectivity profile provisioning for secure element
A method is provided for provisioning a secure element with a given connectivity profile for mobile network communication. The method comprises: receiving, at the secure element, a bound profile package specifying the given connectivity profile, the bound profile package being encrypted using an encryption key specific to the secure element; decrypting the bound profile package using a pre-installed key pre-installed in key storage of the secure element prior to initiation of a connectivity profile provisioning process for provisioning the secure element with the given connectivity profile; and installing the given connectivity profile from the decrypted bound profile package on the secure element.Filed by Kigen (UK) Limited, published 2025-08-21 — illustrates the current claim style around pre-installed key storage and encrypted profile provisioning ahead of activation.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190036688A1 | Secure communication for medical devices | 392 |
| 2 | US20170103388A1 | Multi-path communication of electronic device secure element data for online payments | 354 |
| 3 | US20120047237A1 | Method, Server, Computer Program and Computer Program Product for Communicating with Secure Element | 318 |
| 4 | US20170011395A1 | Multi-path communication of electronic device secure element data for online payments | 308 |
| 5 | US20180268132A1 | Hardware isolated secure processing system within a secure element | 284 |
| 6 | US20130151400A1 | Integrated mobile trusted service manager | 223 |
| 7 | US20150095238A1 | Online payments using a secure element of an electronic device | 213 |
| 8 | US20140013406A1 | Embedded secure element for authentication, storage and transaction within a mobile terminal | 190 |
| 9 | US20150213433A1 | Secure provisioning of credentials on an electronic device using elliptic curve cryptography | 172 |
| 10 | US20140250006A1 | Integrated mobile trusted service manager | 124 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on the field's vocabulary, not as a ranking of current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Four read-outs from the composition and concentration figures above, aimed at where to file and where not to.
The top tier holds real ground, but it is not a duopoly
Five assignees account for 44.0% of all 309 records, rising to 58.9% once the top ten are included. That leaves over 40% of the corpus held by a long tail of single- or few-filing organisations — a structure that rewards a sharply differentiated claim more than one that simply crowds an occupied class.
Growth is real but recent years understate it
Filings rose from 5 in 2021 to 18 in 2024, a genuine acceleration rather than noise. 2025 and 2026 figures will keep revising upward as publications catch up, so the apparent recent dip is a lag artefact, not a retreat from the space.
Claims are written in general cryptographic language, not automotive terms
H04L and G06F each cover close to half of all records, while the automotive-specific B60R class appears in just 4.2%. Filers drafting automotive HSM claims are effectively competing inside a payments-and-mobile prior art base rather than a dedicated vehicle category.
US filings lead, but PCT and EPO routes are substantial
The United States receives the largest single share of filings, with Europe (EPO) and WIPO PCT routes each carrying meaningful volume behind it. A filer targeting global secure-element deployment should expect prior art distributed across all three offices, not concentrated in one jurisdiction.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hardware security modules for vehicles, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and what the leaders are doing now
The assignee ranking spans 89 companies across payments, mobile chipsets, cloud platforms and industrial hardware — reflecting the shared secure-element base this search string captures.
The top filer holds a clear lead over the field
The leading assignee's 52 records sit well above the fifth-place count of 17, indicating a single organisation with sustained, multi-year investment in secure-element claim territory rather than a cluster of near-equal competitors.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet across most named leaders
Among the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum, only one shows any filing activity in the latest year, and even that is a single record. This is consistent with the 18-month publication lag rather than a genuine pullback by these firms.
Co-filing between organisations is rare
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, each linked by shared inventors rather than joint corporate ventures. Most secure-element patenting in this dataset is filed by a single organisation acting alone.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 1 | — |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | — |
| Visa International Service Association | 0 | — |
| KDDI Corporation | 0 | — |
| Jio Platforms Ltd. | 0 | — |
| NXP B.V. | 0 | — |
| Visa Europe | 0 | — |
| Phytium Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The figures above describe the shape of the field. Two follow-on steps turn that shape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-tier claim set
With 44.0% of records held by five assignees, a new automotive HSM filing needs claim-by-claim comparison against that concentrated set before drafting, not just a keyword search of the wider corpus.
Explore claims in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches before they fill in
B60R, G06K and H04N overlaps remain thin relative to the core H04L and G06F classes. Monitoring these branches now costs less than discovering a blocking filing after a product is committed.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on hardware security module patents
The dataset's leading assignee holds 52 of the 309 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 17. That said, the ranking spans 89 companies across payments, mobile, cloud and industrial hardware, so no single firm dominates the field the way the leader dominates the top tier. Buyers evaluating supplier risk should look at the top-five combined share (44.0% of all 309 records) rather than any one company's count in isolation.
Filings grew sharply from 5 in 2021 to 18 in 2024, a +260% increase over that three-year span, with a peak year so far of 28 filings in 2022. The apparent decline in 2025 and 2026 figures is a publication-lag artefact, since publication typically trails filing by around 18 months. Read the trend through 2024 as the last reliably complete year.
The corpus is classified mainly under H04L (digital information transmission, 48.2% of records) and G06F (electric digital data processing, 46.0%), with G06Q (business and commerce processing) close behind at 38.8%. Vehicle-specific classification under B60R appears in only 4.2% of records, showing that most claim language originates in general cryptographic and computing categories rather than automotive-specific drafting. A record can carry multiple classes, so these shares add up to more than 100%.
Relative to the dense H04L and G06F filing base, branches touching B60R (vehicle-specific hardware), G06K (data recognition tied to key provisioning) and H04N (video/telematics integration) carry markedly fewer records. That does not guarantee an easy filing, but it indicates the intersection of secure-element cryptography with automotive-specific hardware constraints — thermal limits, ECU lifecycle rotation, fleet-scale provisioning — is comparatively under-claimed against the general cryptographic base.
Moderately concentrated at the top and long-tailed beneath it: the top five assignees hold 44.0% of all 309 records, and the top ten hold 58.9%. Behind that, the ranking runs to 89 companies, most holding only a handful of records each. This structure means a new entrant is less likely to be blocked by a single dominant player across the whole field than by specific claims held by whichever of the top five is active in their exact sub-area.
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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.