ML-DSA & Post-Quantum Signature Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 15.2% concentration at the top. the five leading filers hold 2,560 of 16,796 records in scope, leaving the remaining 84.8% spread across a long tail of assignees.
- Filings cooled after a 2019 peak. activity crested at 825 records that year and fell 37% from 2021 (684) to 2024 (433), the last year the data can treat as complete.
- H04L dominates, G09C barely registers. digital transmission claims sit on 70.7% of records while dedicated ciphering/secret-communication filings under G09C cover just 7.3%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (684 records) with 2024 (433) — 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 16,796 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps 16,796 published patent records filed against a search string combining ML-DSA, Dilithium and lattice-signature terminology with post-quantum and public-key cryptography language. The scope spans 2015 through mid-2026, capturing the field from early lattice-signature exploration through the commercial push that followed the finalisation of NIST’s post-quantum signature standards.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was — treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional, not as evidence of a slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 16,796-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2019 peak followed by a real decline
Filings ran at 724 in 2017, peaked at 825 in 2019, and by 2024 — the last complete year in scope — had fallen to 433, down 37% from the 684 filed in 2021. Later years in the chart are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates.
Claim density concentrates in transmission and general data processing
H04L (digital information transmission) touches 70.7% of the 16,796 records and G06F (electric digital data processing) touches 42.2%, reflecting how much post-quantum signature work is filed as an extension of existing network and computing infrastructure claims rather than as freestanding cryptographic primitives. G09C, the subclass most narrowly aimed at ciphering and secret communication, covers only 7.3% of records — a sign that dedicated cryptographic-primitive claims are a smaller slice than the transmission and processing framing around them.
Shares are the percentage of the 16,796 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Post-Quantum Cryptography — ML-DSA Digital Signatures Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about post-quantum cryptography — ml-dsa digital signatures patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing
Methods and systems for performing post quantum cryptography based asymmetric key encryption during primary authentication
The disclosure covers a 5G/6G communication method in which a user equipment encrypts a subscription permanent identifier (SUPI), concatenated with a random value, into a Subscriber Concealed Protection Identifier (SUCI) using a home network's post-quantum public key — binding PQC key encryption directly into primary network authentication.Filed by Samsung Electronics, published 2024-08-08 as WO2024162661A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6850252B1 | Intelligent electronic appliance system and method | 4,059 |
| 2 | US20160012465A1 | System and method for distributing, receiving, and using funds or credits and apparatus thereof | 2,563 |
| 3 | US5883810A | Electronic online commerce card with transactionproxy number for online transactions | 2,206 |
| 4 | US5677955A | Electronic funds transfer instruments | 2,041 |
| 5 | US20070087756A1 | Multifactorial optimization system and method | 1,866 |
| 6 | US4993068A | Unforgeable personal identification system | 1,737 |
| 7 | US5613012A | Tokenless identification system for authorization of electronic transactions and electronic transmissions | 1,692 |
| 8 | US7100195B1 | Managing user information on an e-commerce system | 1,649 |
| 9 | US20020010679A1 | Information record infrastructure, system and method | 1,634 |
| 10 | US8316237B1 | System and method for secure three-party communications | 1,622 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply by virtue of being searchable longer; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Four read-outs from the assignee, citation and filing-trend data that matter for freedom-to-operate and filing strategy.
Leadership is real but narrow
The five leading filers combine for 2,560 records, 15.2% of everything in scope; the ten leading filers add up to 21.6% (3,632 records). That leaves close to four-fifths of the corpus spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
Filing pace has genuinely cooled
Activity peaked at 825 records in 2019 and had fallen from 684 in 2021 to 433 in 2024 — the last year complete enough to compare. That decline predates the publication lag that makes 2025-2026 look artificially quiet.
Transmission claims dominate the field
H04L (digital information transmission) appears on 70.7% of the 16,796 records, far ahead of G06F at 42.2% and G06Q at 18.5%. Dedicated ciphering subclass G09C sits at just 7.3%, suggesting most filers are securing network and processing use-cases rather than the cryptographic primitive itself.
Influence skews toward older commerce-adjacent filings
The most-cited records in this corpus are commerce and funds-transfer patents from the 1990s-2000s, not recent PQC-specific filings — a reminder that citation counts reward age and searchability inside a corpus, not present-day relevance.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to post-quantum cryptography — ml-dsa digital signatures patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
A short list of assignees hold a visible share of the corpus; the rest of the ranked leaders show comparatively thin, recent activity.
One filer is well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 702 records against a fifth-place figure of 286 and a tenth-place figure of 174 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-long-tail field rather than an evenly contested one.
Co-filing is limited and mostly intra-group
Only ten co-assignee pairings appear in the data, and the strongest of them link related entities under the same corporate group rather than independent companies partnering across organisational lines.
Leading filers have gone quiet in the most recent year
Several of the assignees at the top of the ranking, including the field's largest filer, show zero recorded filings in the latest year, with one leading filer down 100% year over year. Given the publication lag, this likely overstates any real pullback, but it is consistent with the broader 2021-2024 decline.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BlackBerry Limited | 0 | — |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 0 | — |
| Microsoft Corporation | 0 | — |
| Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| Certicom Corp | 0 | — |
| Visa International Service Association | 0 | -100% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace filing, or tracking a competitor.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claims
With one assignee holding 702 of 16,796 records, a targeted claim-chart review of that portfolio is the fastest way to find out whether a planned filing sits on occupied ground.
Run a claim comparison in Patsnap EurekaWatch the recent-year momentum, not just the totals
Several leading filers show zero activity in the latest year; whether that reflects a real pullback or the publication lag is worth confirming before reading too much into it.
Track assignee momentum in Patsnap EurekaProbe the under-claimed sub-areas directly
Thin coverage in areas like hybrid handshake negotiation or vending-terminal key provisioning is easier to confirm with a fresh semantic search than to infer from IPC shares alone.
Search white space in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 702 of the 16,796 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 286 and the tenth-ranked filer at 174. The top five combined hold 15.2% of all records and the top ten hold 21.6%, which means even the leading group leaves the large majority of filings spread across a long tail of smaller filers. This pattern is typical of a field still being staked out rather than one dominated by a small cartel of incumbents.
No — filings peaked at 825 records in 2019 and had fallen to 433 by 2024, a 37% decline from the 684 filed in 2021. 2024 is the most recent year the dataset can treat as complete; figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is largely the normal 18-month publication lag rather than a further collapse in filing activity. Read the 2021-2024 comparison as the reliable trend signal.
Most records are classified under H04L, digital information transmission, which touches 70.7% of the 16,796 records, followed by G06F general data processing at 42.2% and G06Q business/commerce processing at 18.5%. Dedicated ciphering and secret-communication claims under G09C cover only 7.3% of records, so a large share of this corpus is post-quantum cryptography applied inside network, computing or commerce systems rather than filed as standalone cryptographic primitives. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares do not and should not sum to 100%.
WO2024162661A1 is a Samsung Electronics filing, published 2024-08-08, describing a method for embedding post-quantum public-key encryption into 5G/6G primary authentication — specifically, encrypting a subscription permanent identifier together with a random value into a Subscriber Concealed Protection Identifier using a home network's PQC public key. It is a representative example of how PQC claims are being written into existing telecom authentication flows rather than as isolated cryptographic algorithm patents. Anyone designing SUCI-style identity concealment for 5G/6G with a PQC key should review this filing's claim scope directly.
The IPC composition shows heavy claim density in transmission (H04L) and general processing (G06F) but comparatively thin coverage in ciphering-specific G09C (7.3%) and pictorial/video communication H04N (4.5%), suggesting narrower cryptographic-primitive claims and media-channel signature applications are less crowded than network-layer implementations. Co-assignee data also shows only ten identified partnership pairs across the whole dataset, mostly within single corporate groups, which points to limited cross-company collaboration as another area open to a differentiated filing or partnership strategy. Confirming any specific gap still requires a targeted prior-art search rather than relying on IPC shares alone.
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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.
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.