PCB & Electronic Assembly Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
PCB and Electronic Assembly Patents: Who Leads and Where Filing Is Heading
Filing has cooled from its peak. the field peaked in 2021 at 813 records and fell 43% to 464 by 2024, the last complete year before publication lag distorts the count. Filings ran at 603 in 2017 and rose to a peak of 813 in 2021, before falling to 464 by 2024 — a 43% decline over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures (44 in the most recent year shown) understate real activity because of publication lag; they are not evidence the field has stopped moving.
- 1INTEL CORP14.0%
- 2NUCURRENT INC3.7%
- 3INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION3.2%
- 4AMPHENOL CORP1.5%
- 5NOCO CO1.5%
See the full pcb & electronic assembly patent landscape 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 about this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in PCB and electronic assembly?
One assignee holds a clear lead with 2,048 records, well ahead of the field, and the top 5 assignees together account for 23.9% of all 14,669 records in scope. The top 10 combined reach 28.2%, which means more than seven in ten records sit outside the ranked leaders. That long tail includes many single- and few-filing entrants, so a newcomer is not automatically boxed out by the leaders’ scope.
Is patent filing in this field growing or shrinking?
Filing volume rose from 603 records in 2017 to a peak of 813 in 2021, then declined 43% to 464 by 2024. 2024 is the most recent year in this dataset reliable enough to draw conclusions from, because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months. Treat the lower counts shown for 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as proof the field is winding down.
What technology areas dominate PCB and electronic assembly patents?
H01L (semiconductor devices) and H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) are the two largest IPC subclasses, covering 29.7% and 27.3% of all records respectively. H10W follows at 16.3% and H01R connector claims at 11.5%. Because a record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, so no single class should be read as a majority of the field on its own.
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 PCB & Electronic Assembly Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.