Path Planning Patent Landscape 2026
Path Planning Patent Landscape in 2026
NVIDIA leads a moderately concentrated field of 17,620 patent families, with the United States as the dominant filing jurisdiction and autonomous-vehicle control as the core technology cluster. The field reached a plateau around 2022 and annual volume has eased since, though a strong multi-year base and diverging applicant trajectories signal continued competitive repositioning.
NVIDIA leads a moderately concentrated field with a clear tier gap below the top five
NVIDIA Corporation holds the top position with 882 patent families, followed by Motional AD LLC at 658 and GM Global Technology Operations LLC at 506. The top five applicants — NVIDIA, Motional AD, GM, Deere & Co, and Zoox — together account for 21% of the combined total across the hundred largest filers, indicating moderate concentration rather than outright dominance.
A meaningful tier gap separates the top five from the second tier: Qualcomm (332 patent families), Ford Global Technologies (310), and Robert Bosch (306) cluster closely behind, followed by a longer tail of automotive OEMs, autonomous-driving specialists, and Chinese research universities.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NVIDIA Corporation | 882 | |
| 2 | Motional AD LLC | 658 | |
| 3 | GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 506 | |
| 4 | DEERE & CO | 448 | |
| 5 | Zoox Inc | 379 | |
| 6 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 332 | |
| 7 | Ford Global Technologies LLC | 310 | |
| 8 | Robert Bosch GmbH | 306 | |
| 9 | Yinwang Intelligent Technologies Co Ltd | 290 | |
| 10 | Baidu USA LLC | 287 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Beijing Institute of Technology | 270 | |
| 12 | Toyota Motor Corporation | 261 | |
| 13 | iRobot Corporation | 220 | |
| 14 | Huawei Technologies Co Ltd | 217 | |
| 15 | Waymo LLC | 184 | |
| 16 | Beihang University | 176 | |
| 17 | NANJING UNIV OF AERONAUTICS & ASTRONAUTICS | 174 | |
| 18 | Intel Corporation | 168 | |
| 19 | Harbin Engineering University | 161 | |
| 20 | Aptiv Technologies AG | 160 |
The leaders’ positions reflect distinct strategic orientations — NVIDIA anchors its portfolio in perception and AI models, while Motional AD, Zoox, and GM concentrate heavily in vehicle motion control and autonomous driving protocols. This divergence means no single player dominates across the full technology stack.
The most recent 18–24 months of filing data are subject to publication lag and likely under-represent actual recent activity; apparent softness in 2024–2026 counts should be read with that caveat. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing volume plateaued near its 2022 peak; vehicle control and perception dominate the technology mix
The trend chart captures a rapid build-up from 2017 through 2022 followed by a plateau, while the technology composition chart reveals a field anchored in non-electric variable control and hybrid vehicle control but increasingly layered with perception and AI subclasses.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew sharply from 1,053 in 2017 to a peak around 2,486 in 2022, then eased to 2,397 in 2023 and 1,913 in 2024. The 2025 and 2026 bars reflect publication lag and should not be read as real decline. The overall pattern is consistent with a maturing field that has plateaued near its high-water mark rather than one in retreat.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
G05D (control of non-electric variables) is the dominant IPC class, reflecting the centrality of autonomous navigation logic. B60W (hybrid/joint vehicle control) forms a strong second cluster, confirming automotive autonomy as the primary application domain. Perception-related classes — G06V (image/video recognition), G01C (navigation and gyroscopes), and G06N (AI models) — form a substantial secondary layer, indicating that sensor fusion and machine learning are increasingly core to path planning filings.
↗ 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.
Local trajectory planning method and apparatus for…
The present invention provides a local trajectory planning method and apparatus for a smart vehicle, pre-acquiring path planning information from a starting location to a destination; the method comprising: determining a target lane; sampling alternative curves from a current location of the smart vehicle to a target lane according to the path planning… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Systems and methods for safe and reliable autonomo… | 1,021 |
| 2 | Control and systems for autonomously driven vehicles | 962 |
| 3 | Using Autonomous Vehicles in a Taxi Service | 901 |
| 4 | Autonomous neighborhood vehicle commerce network a… | 861 |
| 5 | Method and system for controlling a remote vehicle | 848 |
| 6 | Obstacle recognition method for autonomous robots | 728 |
| 7 | Computer peripheral floor cleaning system and navi… | 722 |
| 8 | Artificial Intelligence Valet Systems and Methods | 721 |
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. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural observations — maturity, concentration, collaboration patterns, and geographic spread — together frame where differentiated R&D investment is most and least defensible in path planning.
Field is mature: annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak
The lifecycle evidence places path planning at the Maturity stage, with annual filings having plateaued near their peak. The field is still broad on a multi-year basis, but the rapid-growth phase of the 2017–2022 period has passed. New entrants face an established prior-art landscape; incremental differentiation in core vehicle-control subclasses is increasingly difficult without deep specialization.
Maturity · plateaued near peakModerate concentration with a long, competitive tail
The top five filers hold 21% of the combined total across the hundred largest filers — moderate, not dominant. The gap between the top tier (NVIDIA at 882, Motional AD at 658) and the second tier (Qualcomm at 332, Ford at 310, Bosch at 306) is real but not prohibitive. A diverse tail of OEMs, autonomous-driving specialists, and university filers means the competitive field remains open to well-focused challengers.
Concentration · moderateIndustry-academia partnerships are active, led by Baidu’s intra-group co-filing
The most frequent co-filing pair is Baidu USA LLC and Baidu Times Network Technology (Beijing) — 78 joint families — reflecting coordinated cross-border IP strategy within a single corporate group. Beyond that, Deere & Co co-files with Carnegie Mellon University (8 families), GM with Carnegie Mellon (7 families), and Ford with the University of Michigan Board (6 families), pointing to sustained industry-academia channels particularly in agricultural and automotive autonomy. Robert Bosch co-files with Mercedes-Benz Group (6 families) and with Tsinghua University (2 families), illustrating both OEM supplier alliances and Sino-European academic linkages.
Collaboration · industry-academia activeUnited States dominates filings; China and Europe are secondary but substantial
The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed by China and Europe (EPO) as the next largest markets. WIPO PCT filings indicate a meaningful share of applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdictional protection. Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada form a secondary ring. Japan and South Korea show relatively modest filing volumes at the patent-record level, which may reflect home-market filings captured elsewhere in applicant totals.
Geography · US-led, multi-marketGo 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Baidu USA LLC | Baidu Times Network Technology (Beijing) Co Ltd | 78 |
| Deere & Company | Carnegie Mellon University | 8 |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | Carnegie Mellon University | 7 |
| Ford Global Technologies LLC | Regents of the University of Michigan | 6 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | Mercedes-Benz Group AG | 6 |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | University of Ottawa | 2 |
| Motional AD LLC | Aptiv Technologies AG | 2 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | Tsinghua University | 2 |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | Rutgers University | 1 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | Carnegie Mellon University | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
NVIDIA accelerates while Motional AD retreats — diverging trajectories at the top
The top two applicants show sharply diverging momentum: NVIDIA is growing aggressively while Motional AD has contracted. Technology emphasis differs equally, with NVIDIA anchored in perception and AI versus Motional AD’s concentration in vehicle motion control.
NVIDIA Corporation
NVIDIA leads the ranking with 882 patent families and is the fastest-growing top applicant, with recent filings up +67% versus the prior three-year period. Its technology focus is concentrated in image/video recognition (G06V 20 and G06V 10) and AI model computing (G06N 3), reflecting a perception-first approach to path planning that aligns with its GPU and inference-platform strategy. NVIDIA’s momentum distinguishes it sharply from the rest of the top tier.
families: 882Motional AD LLC
Motional AD ranks second with 658 patent families but has seen recent filings decline by –60% versus the prior three-year period, the steepest retreat among top-tier applicants. Its portfolio is concentrated in hybrid/joint vehicle control (B60W 60 and B60W 30) and autonomous navigation control (G05D 1), reflecting a pure-play AV focus. The sharp contraction in recent filings may reflect portfolio consolidation or strategic reorientation rather than exit from the field.
families: 658| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Corporation | 480 | ▲ +67% |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 157 | ▲ +24% |
| Motional AD LLC | 127 | ▼ -60% |
| Deere & Company | 127 | ▲ +38% |
| Zoox Inc | 122 | ▼ -6% |
| Huawei Technologies Co Ltd | 91 | ▼ -46% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 101 | ▲ +53% |
| Ford Global Technologies LLC | 51 | ▼ -53% |
Under-served branches adjacent to the core path planning cluster
The whitespace analysis identifies IPC classes that carry meaningful filing volume but remain secondary relative to the dominant G05D cluster. These observations indicate relative sparsity within the scope of the corpus — not validated market opportunities — but some carry plausible technical value for teams working on specific application domains.
G08G · Traffic Control Systems
G08G covers traffic-flow management and vehicle-to-infrastructure coordination, an adjacent layer to on-vehicle path planning. With 2,403 patent records in scope, it sits well below the dominant G05D cluster despite the logical dependency of path planning on traffic-state inputs. For teams building cooperative or infrastructure-aware planning systems — particularly in smart-city or V2X contexts — this class represents an area where the patent density is comparatively lower relative to its technical relevance, and a focused filing strategy could establish a defensible position.
Search this in Eureka →G06N · Computing Based on AI Models
G06N covers neural networks, reinforcement learning, and other AI model paradigms. At 1,867 patent records in scope, it is a secondary branch despite AI being a primary engine of modern path planning algorithms. The relative sparsity compared to G05D and B60W suggests that much AI-related path planning IP is being claimed under application-specific classes rather than foundational AI model classes. Teams developing novel learning-based planners — such as transformer-based trajectory prediction or offline reinforcement learning for navigation — may find more open claim space in this branch than the aggregate filing volume implies.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology route: perception-first vs. control-first vs. domain-specific
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | G05D 1 · Control of non-electric variables | B60W 30 · Hybrid/joint vehicle control | B60W 60 · Hybrid/joint vehicle control | G06V 20 · Image/video recognition | G01C 21 · Distance, navigation & gyroscopes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Corporation | Strong · 254 | Moderate · 154 | Strong · 303 | Strong · 483 | Emerging · 52 |
| Motional AD LLC | Strong · 158 | Strong · 224 | Strong · 279 | Moderate · 70 | Moderate · 63 |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | Strong · 211 | Strong · 176 | Strong · 123 | Moderate · 69 | Moderate · 49 |
| Zoox Inc | Strong · 187 | Strong · 122 | Strong · 139 | Moderate · 41 | Absent |
| Deere & Company | Strong · 345 | Absent | Absent | Emerging · 38 | Moderate · 91 |
| Baidu USA LLC | Strong · 170 | Strong · 103 | Moderate · 77 | Absent | Moderate · 58 |
| Huawei Technologies Co Ltd | Absent | Strong · 121 | Strong · 77 | Moderate · 38 | Moderate · 50 |
Frequently asked questions
The analysis covers 17,620 patent families. This total reflects the full corpus across all jurisdictions and filing years included in the scope.
NVIDIA Corporation leads with 882 patent families, ahead of Motional AD LLC at 658 and GM Global Technology Operations LLC at 506. NVIDIA’s recent filing growth of +67% versus the prior three-year period also makes it the fastest-growing top applicant.
The field is at the Maturity stage. Annual filings peaked around 2022 at approximately 2,486 patent records and have eased since. The multi-year base remains broad, but the rapid-growth phase of 2017–2022 has passed.
The United States is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed by China and Europe (EPO) as the next two largest. WIPO PCT filings indicate meaningful multi-jurisdictional protection strategies. Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada form a secondary ring of coverage.
The most frequent co-filing pair is Baidu USA LLC and Baidu Times Network Technology (Beijing) with 78 joint families — an intra-corporate cross-border strategy. Key industry-academia pairs include Deere & Co with Carnegie Mellon University (8 families), GM with Carnegie Mellon (7 families), and Ford with the University of Michigan Board (6 families).
G08G (traffic control systems, 2,403 patent records) and G06N (computing based on AI models, 1,867 patent records) are secondary branches with plausible technical relevance to path planning but lower filing density than the dominant G05D cluster. G06T (image data processing) and G01C (navigation and gyroscopes) are additional adjacent branches worth monitoring.
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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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