Homomorphic Encryption Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Homomorphic Encryption Engineering Patents
Concentrated but not locked up. the five leading assignees hold 30.3% of all 1,102 records in scope, and the ranked leaders' top ten hold 44.2% — leaving over half the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Publications rose from 57 in 2017 to a peak of 244 in 2025, with the most recent years still filling in under the usual publication lag. The 2021-to-2024 window, the most recent complete comparison available, shows a pullback from 125 to 103 filings, an 18% decline over three years.
- 1ZAMA SAS8.2%
- 2INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION7.1%
- 3MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC6.0%
- 4SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD4.9%
- 5THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE UNIV OF TORONTO4.2%
See the full homomorphic encryption engineering 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
Who holds the most patents in homomorphic encryption engineering?
The dataset ranks 100 assignees by patent family count, and the leading filer holds 90 records — roughly double the fifth-place holder’s 46. That said, the top ten combined account for only 44.2% of all 1,102 records in scope, so no single company or small group controls the field outright. A meaningful share of activity comes from mid-tier corporate filers and university technology-transfer offices rather than a handful of dominant players.
Is patent filing in homomorphic encryption slowing down?
Filings fell from 125 in 2021 to 103 in 2024, an 18% decline over that three-year span, which is the most recent window that can be read as complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look higher, but publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those years are still filling in and should not yet be read as a rebound or a continued decline. The honest read is that the 2021-2024 trend shows some cooling, and later years need another year or two of data before drawing conclusions.
What technology areas dominate homomorphic encryption patent claims?
Digital information transmission (IPC class H04L) appears in 73.0% of the 1,102 records in scope, and general electric digital data processing (G06F) appears in 44.7%, making these the two largest claim areas by a wide margin. Computing tied to AI models (G06N) is third at 24.8%, reflecting a real but secondary link to machine-learning workloads. Narrower applications — healthcare informatics, speech and audio, business-process computing — each sit under 6%, marking them as comparatively open ground.
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 Homomorphic Encryption Engineering 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.