Network Timing & Synchronization Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- 26.3% sits with five companies. The top 5 assignees combined hold 2,810 of the 10,666 records in scope — concentrated, but not a monopoly; the other 73.7% is spread across a long tail.
- Filing has cooled from its 2019 peak. Filings ran from 462 in 2017 to a peak of 591 in 2019, then declined; the 2021→2024 span alone dropped 22% (557 to 435), the most recent complete comparison available.
- Wireless and digital transmission dominate the claim map. H04W and H04L together touch the majority of records (45.5% and 41.9% respectively), while AI-based computing (G06N) sits at just 5.6% — a narrow, likely under-built bridge between timing and model-driven network control.
Filing growth compares 2021 (557 records) with 2024 (435) — 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 10,666 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent activity at the intersection of network synchronization and precision timing with the infrastructure that depends on it — packet routing, network function virtualization, topology management, timing-source selection and signal transmission. The search combines timing-specific terms with network-infrastructure terms, so the scope is deliberately narrower than either field alone: it captures claims where timing mechanics and network operation are described together, not every timing patent or every networking patent in isolation.
10,666 published records fall inside this scope between 2015 and the 2026-08-31 cut-off. Because publication trails filing by roughly eighteen months, the last one to two years of the trend understate real filing activity and should be read as provisional rather than declining.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 10,666-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim language.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 462 in 2017 to a peak of 591 in 2019, then eased; the clearest complete-year comparison, 2021 to 2024, shows a 22% decline (557 to 435). 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the publication lag and should not be read as a continuing drop.
IPC subclass coverage
H04W (wireless communication networks, 45.5% of records) and H04L (digital information transmission, 41.9%) anchor the field. H04B (transmission general, 21.2%) and H04J (multiplex communication, 16.1%) follow at meaningfully lower density. G06F, G01S, H04Q and G06N each sit under 11%, with G06N (AI-based computing) the thinnest of the eight at 5.6% — since a record can carry multiple classes, these shares sum past 100% and each is read against the full 10,666-record base.
Shares are the percentage of the 10,666 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Network Timing & Synchronization Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about network timing & synchronization patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
WO2019165001A1 — Method for timing source selection in a network
Filed by Trabus Technologies, this application describes transceiver units that broadcast their own identifier alongside the identifier of whichever unit they currently rely on for network time, letting each unit select its timing source from among peers based on those broadcasts.The mechanism is peer-broadcast timing-source selection rather than a fixed master-clock hierarchy — a distinction that matters for anyone designing decentralized timing without a single reference node.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6611537B1 | Synchronous network for digital media streams | 2,481 |
| 2 | US7295548B2 | Method and system for disaggregating audio/visual components | 1,562 |
| 3 | US20170331670A1 | Network Architecture, Methods, and Devices for a Wireless Communications Network | 1,307 |
| 4 | US20070198656A1 | Methods and servers for establishing a connection between a client system and a virtual machine executing in … | 1,211 |
| 5 | US20170331577A1 | Network Architecture, Methods, and Devices for a Wireless Communications Network | 1,171 |
| 6 | US20040095907A1 | Method and apparatus for optimization of wireless multipoint electromagnetic communication networks | 1,103 |
| 7 | US6611755B1 | Vehicle tracking, communication and fleet management system | 1,023 |
| 8 | US20190339688A1 | Methods and systems for data collection, learning, and streaming of machine signals for analytics and mainten… | 974 |
| 9 | US20070171921A1 | Methods and systems for interacting, via a hypermedium page, with a virtual machine executing in a terminal s… | 870 |
| 10 | US20110219208A1 | Multi-petascale highly efficient parallel supercomputer | 827 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings by construction — they measure influence accumulated over time, not current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about strategy
Three read-throughs from the concentration, momentum and citation data — useful for deciding where a new filing has room and where it does not.
The top of the field is dense, the rest is not
Five assignees hold 2,810 of the 10,666 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 33.7% (3,593 records). That leaves nearly two-thirds of the corpus distributed across the remaining ranked companies and unranked filers — a genuine long tail, not a two-player market.
Even active recent filers are pulling back
Digital Global Systems filed 19 records in the latest year, down 86% year over year; Qualcomm and the other tracked leaders show comparable double-digit declines. Read this alongside the publication lag — some of the drop is filings still working through the pipeline rather than a real halt.
AI-based timing control is a thin layer, not a gap
G06N (AI-model computing) appears in 5.6% of records versus 45.5% for H04W — present, but far from where claim density sits. That gap between an established base (wireless networks, digital transmission) and a barely-touched adjacent method (AI-driven timing decisions) is where freedom-to-operate is most likely to still exist.
The most-cited work predates the current filing wave
The highest-cited record in the corpus, US6611537B1 on synchronous network streaming, carries 2,481 citations accumulated over a long window — a sign of foundational influence, not evidence that its claims are still the active frontier.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to network timing & synchronization patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
A ranking of 100 companies drawn from the full 10,666-record corpus. The leader holds 1,228 records; by fifth place that falls to 208, and by tenth to 127 — a steep early drop that flattens into a long tail.
One filer sits well ahead of the pack
The top-ranked assignee's 1,228 records are roughly six times the count at fifth place (208), pointing to a company that has built a large, defensible position across the timing-and-network-infrastructure claim space rather than one that filed opportunistically.
The gap narrows fast after the leader
Between fifth and tenth place, record counts fall from 208 to 127 — a much gentler slope than the drop from first to fifth. That shape suggests a competitive second tier rather than a handful of dominant incumbents locking out new entrants.
Co-assignment is rare and inventor-anchored
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest links are between one major filer and named individual inventors rather than between two corporate entities — this field is largely filed solo, not through joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| DIGITAL GLOBAL SYSTEMS INC | 19 | -86% |
| Qualcomm Inc. | 3 | -84% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 2 | -33% |
| Strong Force IoT Portfolio 2016, LLC | 1 | -83% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 1 | -67% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 0 | -100% |
| LG Electronics Inc. | 0 | — |
| Strong Force VCN Portfolio 2019, LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this
The landscape shows concentration at the top and clear composition gaps. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going one level deeper than the aggregate figures shown here.
Map claims against the thin classes
G06N and H04Q carry the lowest record shares in this corpus. Before filing in AI-assisted timing control or switching-layer coordination, check what specific claim language already exists in those subclasses rather than relying on the class-level share alone.
Explore the technology in EurekaWatch the leader's recent filings, not just its total
A 1,228-record leader with a steep recent-year decline is not necessarily retreating — publication lag distorts the last two years for every assignee. Track filing behaviour at the application level to see whether the slowdown is real or a reporting artefact.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions on network timing and synchronization patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 1,228 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 208 and the tenth-place holder at 127. The top five assignees together account for 2,810 records, or 26.3% of the 10,666 records in scope, and the top ten reach 33.7%. That leaves close to two-thirds of the corpus spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so the field is led but not locked up by a single company.
Filings rose from 462 in 2017 to a peak of 591 in 2019, then declined; comparing the last two complete years available, 2021 (557) to 2024 (435), volume is down 22%. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around eighteen months, so the apparent recent drop should be read with that lag in mind rather than as a confirmed slowdown.
Wireless communication networks (IPC class H04W) appear in 45.5% of the 10,666 records, and digital information transmission (H04L) in 41.9%, making these two classes the backbone of the field. Transmission generally (H04B, 21.2%) and multiplex communication (H04J, 16.1%) follow at lower density. AI-based computing methods (G06N) sit at just 5.6%, marking it as the least-developed of the eight major classes tracked here.
WO2019165001A1, filed by Trabus Technologies, describes transceiver units that broadcast a unique identifier plus the identity of whichever unit they currently rely on for network time, and select their own timing source from among the units they hear from. This is a peer-broadcast, decentralized timing-source-selection mechanism rather than a centralized master-clock design. Anyone building distributed timing without a fixed reference node should review this filing's specific claim scope before assuming a hierarchical or GPS-anchored approach avoids it entirely, since the two mechanisms are technically distinct.
The clearest gap sits between the dominant wireless and transmission classes and the barely-touched AI-based computing class (G06N at 5.6% of records) — methods that use learned models to select or adjust timing sources appear to be under-claimed relative to the size of the wireless and transmission base they would sit alongside. Overlaps between timing and radar/positioning (G01S) or switching fabrics (H04Q) also show thinner coverage than the core classes, suggesting room for claims that bridge timing mechanics with those adjacent functions rather than restating core synchronization methods.
Research Network Timing & Synchronization Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole network timing & synchronization patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.