Post Quantum Signature Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Post quantum signature scheme patents: who holds the ground and where filings are still open
One assignee accounts for 111 of the 181 records in scope, with the top five together holding 80.1% of all filings — a field concentrated far beyond a normal long tail. Filings climbed from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 43 in 2020, then fell to 21 by 2021 and to 12 by 2024 — a 43% drop over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continued decline.
- 1INTEL CORP111
- 2NXP BV11
- 3ALGO CONSULTING INC10
- 4LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP7
- 5DING JINTAI6
See the full post quantum signature schemes 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 on post quantum signature patents
Who holds the most patents on post quantum signature schemes?
One assignee accounts for 111 of the 181 records in this dataset, making it the clear leader by a wide margin. The top five assignees combined hold 80.1% of all records in scope, and the top ten hold 91.7%, so the field is concentrated among a small number of established security and semiconductor companies rather than spread across many filers. Anyone assessing competitive position in this space should start by checking that leading portfolio specifically.
Are post quantum signature patent filings increasing or decreasing?
Filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 43 in 2020, then declined to 21 in 2021 and 12 by 2024, a 43% drop over that three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as complete, because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. That means 2025 and 2026 figures in the raw data understate real activity and should not yet be read as confirming a continued decline.
What is a hash-based signature and why does it matter for patents?
A hash-based signature is a digital signature construction built from cryptographic hash functions rather than number-theoretic problems like factoring, which makes it resistant to attacks from large-scale quantum computers. Many of the highest-cited records in this dataset, including hardware accelerators combining SHA2 and SHA3 for one such scheme, focus on making these signatures fast enough for practical deployment. The patent activity concentrates on operational details — signature size, verification latency, key generation time and state management — rather than on the underlying mathematics itself.
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 Post Quantum Signature Schemes covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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.