Homomorphic Encryption Patent Landscape 2026
Homomorphic Encryption Patent Landscape in 2026
The homomorphic encryption patent field has reached a mature plateau with annual filings stabilizing near their 2023 peak, supported by 15,004 patent families from a highly competitive but moderately concentrated field. IBM and Alipay (Hangzhou) hold near-identical leading positions, while digital transmission (H04L) dominates the technology mix and the United States remains the primary filing jurisdiction.
IBM and Alipay (Hangzhou) co-lead a competitive but moderately concentrated field
IBM leads the Advanced New Technologies (460 patent families) and NTT (367 patent families) round out the top four, creating a first tier with no dominant single incumbent.
The top five filers account for 23% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, signalling moderate rather than extreme concentration. A clear tier gap emerges after the top four, with Mitsubishi Electric (294), Samsung Electronics (290), Microsoft (287), NEC (280), Google (279), and Visa (272) forming a closely bunched second tier.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | International Business Machines Corporation | 506 | |
| 2 | Alipay (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. | 504 | |
| 3 | Advanced New Technologies Co., Ltd. | 460 | |
| 4 | NIPPON TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE CORP | 367 | |
| 5 | Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 294 | |
| 6 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 290 | |
| 7 | Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | 287 | |
| 8 | NEC Corporation | 280 | |
| 9 | Google LLC | 279 | |
| 10 | Visa International Service Association | 272 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | CryptoLab Inc. | 226 | |
| 12 | Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 224 | |
| 13 | Ant Blockchain Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. | 210 | |
| 14 | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 178 | |
| 15 | SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY R&DB FOUNDATION | 163 | |
| 16 | AntChain Technology Pte. Ltd. | 157 | |
| 17 | Fujitsu Limited | 149 | |
| 18 | Fortinet Inc. | 141 | |
| 19 | Intel Corporation | 134 | |
| 20 | NTT Inc. | 126 |
The breadth of the second tier — spanning US hyperscalers, Japanese industrial conglomerates, Korean electronics firms, and financial-services technology players — implies that no single entity controls the foundational claim landscape; new entrants and challengers can compete across distinct application verticals without confronting a single gatekeeper.
Patent publication typically lags filing by 18–24 months, so 2025–2026 counts are materially under-represented and should not be used to assess current activity levels. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filings have plateaued near their 2023 peak; digital transmission and data processing dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend and the IPC branch composition together reveal a field that matured rapidly between 2017 and 2022 and has since stabilized, with activity concentrated in communications and computation rather than specialized hardware or domain-specific verticals.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew sharply from 683 families in 2017 to a plateau zone around 1,900–1,978 families per year spanning 2021–2025, with a 2023 peak of 1,978. The 2024 and 2025 figures (1,849 and 1,862 respectively) reflect this plateau rather than a decline; the 2026 count of 257 is a publication-lag artifact and should be disregarded as a trend signal.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition by IPC class
H04L (Digital information transmission) accounts for the largest share of patent records, followed by G06F (Electric digital data processing). G06N (AI models), G06Q (Business and commerce), and G09C (Ciphering) form a secondary layer. Domain-specific classes such as G16H (Healthcare informatics), G16B (Bioinformatics), and G16Y (IoT) are present but represent a small fraction, indicating most activity remains at the protocol and infrastructure level.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Fully homomorphic encryption method and device and…
Provided are a fully homomorphic encryption method and device and a computer readable storage medium capable of enhancing efficiency of a homomorphic multiplication operation in a fully homomorphic encryption method. The method comprises: Step S<b>1</b>: generating a prime modulus q<sub>j</sub>=q<sub>j</sub>(λ, L), according to an input security parameter λ… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | System and method for forming, storing, managing,… | 624 |
| 2 | Systems and methods for enforcing centralized priv… | 621 |
| 3 | Systems and Methods for Enhancing Data Protection … | 451 |
| 4 | Systems and methods for implementing an efficient,… | 419 |
| 5 | Systems and methods for providing data privacy in … | 388 |
| 6 | Systems and methods for enforcing privacy-respectf… | 369 |
| 7 | Blockchain mining using trusted nodes | 334 |
| 8 | Method and system for storage and retrieval of blo… | 325 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
The combination of a mature lifecycle, moderate top-tier concentration, active cross-sector collaboration, and a US-China-Europe jurisdictional split defines where incumbents are protected and where entry remains viable.
Field has plateaued near its 2023 peak
Annual filings have stabilized around 1,900–1,978 families per year since 2021, consistent with a field entering maturity. Core cryptographic protocol claims are increasingly dense, making incremental differentiation harder. R&D investment should target application-layer integration or hardware acceleration rather than foundational scheme innovation, where prior art is now extensive.
Lifecycle: MaturityModerate concentration with a wide, competitive second tier
With the top five filers holding 23% of the hundred largest filers’ combined output, no single player dominates. The second tier — comprising Samsung, Microsoft, NEC, Google, and Visa, each within a 20-family band of one another — shows active multi-sector competition. Entrants can target under-served verticals without immediately conflicting with a monopolistic claim block.
Moderate concentrationNTT–Mitsubishi Electric and Samsung–Seoul National University are the most active co-filing pairs
NTT and Mitsubishi Electric lead all collaboration pairs with 128 co-filed patent families, reflecting a sustained industry–industry R&D alliance. Samsung Electronics collaborates extensively with academic partners: Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (62 families), Chosun University (38 families), and Yonsei University (8 families). Alibaba Group and Advanced New Technologies co-file 23 families, indicating intra-ecosystem coordination. These alliance patterns suggest that hardware-to-protocol integration and scheme optimization are the dominant collaborative research axes.
Cross-sector alliancesUS leads filings; China is a strong second; Europe and WIPO provide international reach
The United States is the lead filing jurisdiction with 5,584 patent records, followed by China with 4,511. Europe (EPO) accounts for 1,869 records and WIPO (PCT) for 1,291, indicating that leading applicants are pursuing broad international protection. India (973 records) is an emerging secondary jurisdiction. Entrants seeking cost-effective first-mover positions in growth markets may find India and Southeast Asian offices comparatively less crowded.
US–China–EU tri-polarGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation | Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 128 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Seoul National University R&DB Foundation | 62 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 朝鲜大学校产学协力团 | 38 |
| Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation | NTT Inc. | 26 |
| Alibaba Group Holding Limited | Advanced New Technologies Co., Ltd. | 23 |
| IBM China Co., Ltd. | International Business Machines (China) Co., Ltd. | 14 |
| IBM China Co., Ltd. | IBM UNITED KINGDOM LTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPAR… | 12 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | GRAZ UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY | 9 |
| IBM China Co., Ltd. | University of Bristol | 8 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 延世大学校产学协力团 | 8 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
IBM anchors protocol-layer depth; Samsung is the fastest-growing challenger by recent momentum
The two players at either end of the momentum spectrum — IBM holding the broadest established position while Samsung is the most actively growing challenger — illustrate the diverging strategic postures within the top tier.
IBM
IBM leads with 506 patent families and concentrates its portfolio primarily in H04L 9 (Digital information transmission, 424 families) and G06F 21 (Electric digital data processing, 212 families), reflecting deep coverage of cryptographic protocol infrastructure. Recent filing momentum has eased (▼ -36% in the recent period), consistent with a maturing foundational portfolio rather than active build-out, and with 126 recent families still being filed it remains highly active in absolute terms.
families: 506Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics holds 290 patent families and is the standout momentum player among the top tier, posting ▲ +48% growth in the recent period with 157 recent families. Its technical focus centers on H04L 9 (249 families) and G06F 21 (81 families), with a notable presence in G06F 7 (arithmetic/computation), suggesting investment in hardware-level implementation of homomorphic schemes — a direction reinforced by its academic collaborations with Seoul National University and Yonsei University.
families: 290| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Alipay (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. | 117 | ▼ -76% |
| IBM China Co., Ltd. | 126 | ▼ -36% |
| Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation | 8 | ▼ -94% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 157 | ▲ +48% |
| Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 20 | ▲ +25% |
| Google LLC | 92 | ▼ -30% |
| Visa International Service Association | 76 | ▼ -25% |
Healthcare informatics and wireless networks are under-served relative to their application potential
Several IPC branches adjacent to the dominant H04L and G06F classes carry plausible technical value for homomorphic encryption but remain lightly covered compared to the core, representing observation points for targeted R&D rather than validated commercial opportunities.
G16H · Healthcare informatics
With 420 patent records, G16H is the most sparsely covered of the application-domain branches despite being one of the most frequently cited use cases for privacy-preserving computation — federated learning on clinical data, secure multi-party genomics analysis, and encrypted inference on patient records all map naturally to homomorphic encryption. The relatively low filing count suggests most incumbents are filing under the broader G06F and H04L classes rather than G16H specifically, leaving room for entrants who can couple scheme optimization with healthcare regulatory knowledge (HIPAA, GDPR health data provisions).
Search this in Eureka →H04W · Wireless communication networks
H04W accounts for 526 patent records — a small share given the scale of edge computing and 5G/6G deployment scenarios where on-device encrypted computation is a live engineering challenge. The branch sits adjacent to the dominant H04L class, and practical entry paths include lightweight homomorphic scheme variants tailored to constrained IoT or mobile endpoints, an area where hardware-software co-design firms and chipset vendors have a natural advantage. The sparsity here is an observation, not a confirmed gap, and warrants prior-art search before committing R&D resources.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ by technology route emphasis
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | H04L 9 · Digital information transmission | G06F 21 · Electric digital data processing | H04L 29 · Digital information transmission | G06F 16 · Electric digital data processing | G06N 3 · Computing based on AI models |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alipay (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. | Strong · 280 | Strong · 448 | Emerging · 56 | Moderate · 111 | Emerging · 39 |
| IBM China Co., Ltd. | Strong · 424 | Moderate · 212 | Moderate · 101 | Emerging · 46 | Emerging · 40 |
| Google LLC | Strong · 231 | Strong · 139 | Emerging · 34 | Moderate · 47 | Absent |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | Strong · 206 | Strong · 138 | Moderate · 62 | Emerging · 19 | Emerging · 16 |
| Advanced New Technologies Co., Ltd. | Strong · 213 | Strong · 140 | Emerging · 24 | Absent | Absent |
| Visa International Service Association | Strong · 236 | Strong · 120 | Absent | Absent | Emerging · 16 |
Frequently asked questions
The analysis covers 15,004 patent families filed globally. The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction with 5,584 patent records, followed by China with 4,511.
IBM leads with 506 patent families, followed by Alipay (Hangzhou) Information Technology with 504 and Advanced New Technologies with 460. NTT (367) and Mitsubishi Electric (294) round out the top five among the hundred largest filers tracked.
Annual filings have plateaued near their 2023 peak of 1,978 families per year, after rapid growth from 683 families in 2017. The lifecycle stage is best described as maturity — the field is not declining, but the pace of incremental growth has eased. The 2026 figure is a publication-lag artifact and does not indicate a real-terms drop.
H04L (Digital information transmission) is the dominant class, followed by G06F (Electric digital data processing). G06N (AI models) and G06Q (Business and commerce) form a secondary layer. Domain-specific classes such as G16H (Healthcare informatics) and G16Y (IoT) are present but represent a small share of records.
NTT and Mitsubishi Electric are the most active co-filing pair with 128 shared patent families. Samsung Electronics collaborates with Seoul National University R&DB Foundation (62 families) and Chosun University (38 families). Alibaba Group and Advanced New Technologies co-file 23 families within their ecosystem.
Healthcare informatics (G16H, 420 patent records) and wireless communication networks (H04W, 526 patent records) are comparatively lightly covered relative to their practical application scope. These are observations of relative filing sparsity; prior-art searches are necessary before drawing investment conclusions.
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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.
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