Quantum Technology Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 30.2% concentration. The five leading assignees together hold 6,809 of the 22,557 records in scope — a concentrated core sitting above a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Growth has flattened, not stalled. Filings moved from 2,303 in 2021 to 2,332 in 2024, a +1% span, after peaking at 2,630 in 2022 — publication lag means 2025-26 counts will keep rising as data fills in.
- Compute and transmission classes dominate. G06N covers 57.8% of records and H04L 13.8%, while device-fabrication classes like B82Y (7.8%) and H03K (4.3%) sit thinner — a signal of where claim space is still loose.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2,303 records) with 2024 (2,332) — 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 22,557 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the filing record shows about quantum technology
The dataset covers 22,557 published records filed against quantum computing, quantum communications, quantum sensing and related quantum materials and control claims between 2015 and mid-2026. Filing activity rose steadily through the late 2010s, peaked at 2,630 records in 2022, and has since settled into a plateau: 2,303 records in 2021 against 2,332 in 2024, a +1% move over that span rather than a decline. Because publication trails filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will read lower than they eventually settle.
Ownership of the field is uneven. The leading assignee alone accounts for 2,396 records, and the top five combined hold 30.2% of all records in scope — concentration that grows only modestly by the tenth position, where the top ten hold 38.7%. Below that threshold sits a long tail of universities, startups and single-filing entities, which is where freedom-to-operate work typically finds the most room to move.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 22,557-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the technology.
A plateau after the 2022 peak
Annual filings climbed from 962 in 2017 to a peak of 2,630 in 2022, then eased to a level that Twenty21-to-2024 data reads as flat (+1%). Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional; publication lag understates them.
Compute-heavy, fabrication-thin
G06N (AI-based computing) touches 57.8% of records and G06F (digital data processing) 17.5%, reflecting how much quantum-technology filing is algorithmic or software-adjacent. Hardware-facing classes — H01L, H10N, B82Y, H03K — each sit under 11%, which is worth noting for anyone assuming the field is dominated by device physics claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 22,557 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Quantum Technologies Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about quantum technologies patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative recent filing
Apparatus and method for combined quantum control task offloading with cryogenic electronics (US12566991B1)
The application describes a low-power quantum control chip designed to run inside a dilution refrigeration unit alongside the qubits it controls. It splits quantum program code between the cryogenic chip — which holds an SRAM store and a compute unit for the time-critical portion — and an external computer handling the rest, connected through a defined interface.Filed by Intel Corporation, published 2026-03-03.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170232300A1 | Smart device | 1,052 |
| 2 | US20210157312A1 | Intelligent vibration digital twin systems and methods for industrial environments | 716 |
| 3 | US20160219024A1 | Secure Dynamic Communication Network And Protocol | 702 |
| 4 | US20180307859A1 | Systems and methods for enforcing centralized privacy controls in de-centralized systems | 629 |
| 5 | US20180078843A1 | Smart device | 480 |
| 6 | US20170243028A1 | Systems and Methods for Enhancing Data Protection by Anonosizing Structured and Unstructured Data and Incorpo… | 455 |
| 7 | US20220366494A1 | Market orchestration system for facilitating electronic marketplace transactions | 442 |
| 8 | US20140183269A1 | Communication device | 396 |
| 9 | US20220108262A1 | Industrial digital twin systems and methods with echelons of executive, advisory and operations messaging and… | 387 |
| 10 | US7533068B2 | Analog processor comprising quantum devices | 382 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three readings of the same data, aimed at where filing decisions and freedom-to-operate checks actually get made.
The core is smaller than it looks
Five assignees hold 6,809 of the 22,557 records in scope. That leaves nearly 70% of the corpus spread across a long tail — useful context before assuming a crowded field means no room to file.
Flat, not falling
The field peaked at 2,630 filings in 2022 and has since held roughly steady rather than declined. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025-26 counts are undercounts in progress, not evidence of a slowdown.
Software claims outnumber hardware claims
G06N (AI-based computing) and G06F (digital data processing) together touch a majority of records, while semiconductor- and device-fabrication classes (H01L, H10N, B82Y) each sit near or under 11%. Hardware-adjacent claim space looks comparatively less occupied.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to quantum technologies patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM DEUTSCHLAND GMBH | 146 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM UNITED KINGDOM LTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT | 134 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | 83 |
| IonQ Inc | University of Maryland | 81 |
| IonQ Inc | Duke University | 62 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM (China) Co., Ltd. | 39 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | 32 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | QUERA COMPUTING INC | 27 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the data, and the strongest links are within single corporate families or between two research institutions rather than across competitors — cross-company joint filing is not yet a common pattern in this field.
Who is filing, and where momentum has cooled
The ranked leaders span large technology companies, chip makers and pure-play quantum computing firms, with universities appearing further down the list. Recent-year YoY figures should be read alongside the publication-lag caveat above — a large negative swing in the latest year often reflects incomplete data rather than a real pullback.
A single assignee out front
The top-ranked assignee holds 2,396 records, well ahead of fifth place at 606 — a gap wide enough that competitive tracking of just the leader will miss most of the field's activity.
Latest-year drops are a data artefact, not a trend
Several of the most active filers show sharp year-on-year declines in the most recent year — for example a leading filer down 92% and others down 70-98%. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, these numbers will fill in as later-filed applications publish; they should not be read as firms exiting the field.
Collaboration is intra-family, not cross-competitor
The strongest co-assignee pairs link a parent company with its own national subsidiary, or two research institutions with each other, rather than joining two independent commercial rivals. Anyone scanning for competitor alliances will find little here so far.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Google LLC | 6 | -92% |
| PsiQuantum Corp | 3 | -70% |
| IonQ Inc | 2 | -88% |
| RIGETTI & CO INC | 2 | -89% |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 1 | -98% |
| Quantinuum LLC | 1 | -96% |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | 1 | -88% |
| D-Wave Systems Inc | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a field with a concentrated core, thinner hardware-side claiming, and provisional recent-year numbers still filling in.
Check freedom-to-operate against the concentrated core
With 30.2% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start with those portfolios before scanning the long tail.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches
Cryogenic control, error-correction hardware interfaces and sensor calibration show comparatively thin filing density relative to the compute-heavy core.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the next 12-18 months of publications
Because publication lags filing, the 2025-26 numbers in this dataset will keep rising; re-checking momentum by assignee in six months will give a cleaner read.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about the quantum technology patent landscape
The dataset's leading assignee holds 2,396 of the 22,557 records in scope, with the gap to fifth place (606 records) wide enough that tracking a single company misses most of the field. The top five assignees combined hold 30.2% of all records, and the top ten hold 38.7%, so ownership is concentrated but far from total. Below the ranked leaders sits a long tail of universities, startups and single-filing entities that collectively hold the majority of the corpus.
Filing activity rose from 962 records in 2017 to a peak of 2,630 in 2022, then flattened: 2021's 2,303 records compare to 2024's 2,332, a +1% move over that span rather than a clear rise or fall. Figures for 2025 and 2026 in any chart will read lower than they eventually settle, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Read the plateau as steady claim activity rather than either an accelerating boom or a cooling field.
Computing-related classification G06N appears on 57.8% of the 22,557 records, and general digital data processing (G06F) on 17.5%, reflecting how much of the filed activity is algorithmic or software-adjacent rather than purely device physics. Digital transmission (H04L) covers 13.8%, and hardware-facing classes such as semiconductor devices (H01L, 10.9%), other solid-state devices (H10N, 10.8%) and nanotechnology applications (B82Y, 7.8%) each cover a smaller share. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read against the full record total, not against each other.
Relative to the dense compute and transmission classes, hardware-adjacent branches such as cryogenic control electronics, quantum-classical co-processing architectures and sensor calibration methods carry a thinner share of the 22,557-record corpus. That does not mean these areas are unclaimed, but claim density is lower than in the core AI-computing and digital-transmission classes. A freedom-to-operate or whitespace search should still check the leading assignees' portfolios in these branches specifically, since concentrated filers are already active in some of them.
The most-cited records in this corpus, including filings like US20170232300A1 and US20160219024A1, accumulated their citation counts over years inside a searched corpus, which structurally favours older filings that have simply had more time to be cited. High citation counts are a useful signal of influence within the tracked literature, but they should not be read as a ranking of current technical importance, since recent high-value filings have not had time to accumulate comparable citations yet.
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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.