Secure Boot Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not closed. the top 5 assignees hold 34.5% of all 310 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 53.5% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing accelerated hard, then cooled on paper. filings ran from 11 in 2021 to 21 in 2024 (+91%) with a peak of 40 in 2022; the 2025-2026 dip reflects publication lag, not a real slowdown.
- Claims cluster in two classes. G06F (electric digital data processing) touches 85.8% of records and H04L (digital information transmission) touches 50.6%, leaving AI-model computing (G06N, 6.1%) and wireless (H04W, 5.5%) comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 records) with 2024 (21) — 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 310 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the secure boot and root-of-trust filing record shows
Secure boot and hardware root-of-trust patenting sits at the intersection of firmware integrity, key provisioning and attestation. The dataset in scope covers 310 published records filed between 2015 and 2026, tagged for boot chain verification, immutable code storage, rollback protection, attestation and recovery mechanisms. Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States, with meaningful volume also routed through the EPO and WIPO’s PCT track, which points to applicants seeking early multi-jurisdiction cover rather than filing locally and expanding later.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look lighter than they eventually turn out to be. The 2022 peak of 40 filings and the 2021-2024 growth of +91% are the more reliable read on momentum than the 2025-2026 tail.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 310-record dataset: filing activity over time, and the IPC subclasses those filings are classified under.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 17 in 2017 to a peak of 40 in 2022, with the 2021-to-2024 window alone up 91% (11 to 21). The 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, so they should not be read as a decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G06F (electric digital data processing) appears on 85.8% of the 310 records and H04L (digital information transmission) on 50.6%, confirming that most activity is claimed as software/firmware integrity mechanisms layered over standard data-transmission protocols rather than as dedicated memory or measurement hardware. G11C (static & digital memories, 1.6%) and G01R (electric & magnetic measurement, 1.3%) are the thinnest classes in scope.
Shares are the percentage of the 310 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Secure Boot and Root of Trust with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about secure boot and root of trust and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
Systems and methods for performing remote attestation on legacy technology (US20250209175A1, DENSO CORPORATION, 2025-06-26)
The method sends an integrity request to a Root of Trust (ROT), which issues an attestation request containing an encrypted secret to a device. The device verifies authenticity, integrity and freshness of that request, runs a safety test against a predetermined condition, and initiates secure boot only if the condition is absent. On successful secure boot, the device assembles a primary message with the encrypted secret and returns it to the ROT.Notable for extending attestation to legacy technology rather than assuming a device was designed with a root of trust from the outset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090327741A1 | System and method to secure boot UEFI firmware and UEFI-aware operating systems on a mobile internet device (… | 189 |
| 2 | US20090320110A1 | Secure boot with optional components method | 143 |
| 3 | US20180109538A1 | System and method for policy based adaptive application capability management and device attestation | 124 |
| 4 | US20180004953A1 | Secure industrial control platform | 116 |
| 5 | US20170364685A1 | Providing security to computing systems | 99 |
| 6 | US20120173877A1 | Method and apparatus for building a hardware root of trust and providing protected content processing within … | 99 |
| 7 | US20180365422A1 | Service Processor and System with Secure Booting and Monitoring of Service Processor Integrity | 88 |
| 8 | US20120151199A1 | Secure Encrypted Boot With Simplified Firmware Update | 88 |
| 9 | US20060161784A1 | Systems and methods for updating a secure boot process on a computer with a hardware security module | 88 |
| 10 | US20170141920A1 | Public/Private Key Biometric Authentication System | 75 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat this as a signal of influence on subsequent filers, not a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the filing, citation and classification data — not projections, just what the current record supports.
The top of the field is dense, the rest is open
The top 5 assignees combined account for 34.5% of all 310 records in scope, and the top 10 account for 53.5%. That leaves roughly half the field spread across a long tail of the remaining 85 ranked companies, many with only one or two filings — a sign that core secure-boot mechanisms are claimed by a handful of large filers while adjacent implementations remain contestable.
Growth peaked in 2022, not in the most recent year
Filings grew from 11 in 2021 to 21 in 2024, a 91% increase, with the single busiest year being 2022 at 40 filings. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the visibly lower 2025-2026 counts are an artefact of that lag rather than evidence the field has cooled.
Software/firmware integrity dominates the claim space
G06F (electric digital data processing) is present on 85.8% of the 310 records and H04L (digital information transmission) on 50.6%, meaning most claims are framed as data-processing or communication mechanisms rather than dedicated hardware. Classes tied to AI-based computing (G06N, 6.1%) and static/digital memory (G11C, 1.6%) carry far less claim density.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to secure boot and root of trust, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still contestable
The 95-company ranking is the complete set the dataset returns, not a curated top list — it ranges from a leader at 34 records down to single-filing entrants.
One filer sits well ahead of the rest
The leading assignee holds 34 records, more than double the fifth-place figure of 13, indicating a company that has built a broad portfolio around boot-chain verification and attestation rather than a single flagship patent.
The gap narrows quickly after the leader
Filing counts compress fast below the top position: fifth place sits at 13 records and tenth place at 11, a narrow band that suggests several similarly sized filers rather than a steep drop-off.
Co-filing is rare and mostly intra-group
Only 7 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pairing links two related entities under the same corporate group rather than an inter-company alliance, so most filings in this field are made by a single named assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Badge Inc. | 0 | — |
| Dell Products L.P. | 0 | -100% |
| Moxa Inc. | 0 | — |
| Baidu Com Times Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Baidu USA LLC | 0 | — |
| Cisco Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| International Business Machines Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio positioning, or spotting an entry point.
Check freedom-to-operate against the most-cited records
The five most-cited filings in this dataset, several dating to the UEFI-era secure boot filings, still anchor a large share of downstream citations. Any new boot-chain verification claim should be checked against these first.
Explore prior art in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches to a draft claim
AI-assisted attestation and legacy-device retrofits show comparatively thin classification density. Turning a gate chip into a filed claim starts with reading the nearest neighbouring records in those classes.
Build a claim chart in EurekaTrack the leader's recent-year activity
Several of the largest assignees in this dataset show 0 filings in the latest year, which given publication lag may understate real activity. Monitoring newly published filings as they land is the only way to catch a shift early.
Set up monitoring in EurekaFrequently asked questions
One assignee leads the ranked field with 34 records, well ahead of the fifth-place company at 13. The top 5 assignees combined hold 34.5% of all 310 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 53.5%, so while there is a clear leader, the remainder of the field is spread across a long tail of smaller filers rather than concentrated in a second tier. Anyone assessing competitive risk should look at both the leader's portfolio and the mid-field cluster around 11-13 records each, since several companies sit close together there.
Filings grew from 11 in 2021 to 21 in 2024, a 91% increase, with the single highest year being 2022 at 40 filings. The apparent dip in 2025 and 2026 is not a real slowdown; publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any patent trend will always look artificially light. The more reliable read on momentum is the 2021-2024 window.
The two dominant IPC subclasses are G06F (electric digital data processing), present on 85.8% of the 310 records in scope, and H04L (digital information transmission), present on 50.6%. Smaller but present classes include G06N (AI-based computing, 6.1%), H04W (wireless networks, 5.5%), H04N (pictorial/video communication, 4.2%), H04M (telephonic communication, 2.3%), G11C (static and digital memories, 1.6%) and G01R (electric and magnetic measurement, 1.3%). Because a single record can carry several classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total, so they should be read as coverage density rather than a strict breakdown.
The thinner IPC classes in this dataset point to comparatively under-claimed areas: AI-based computing tied to attestation decisions (G06N, 6.1% of records), wireless network boot chain verification (H04W, 5.5%), and static/digital memory-level rollback protection (G11C, 1.6%). A representative recent filing, US20250209175A1, also shows active work on retrofitting root-of-trust attestation onto legacy devices that were not designed with it from the outset — a route that is still being actively claimed rather than closed off.
Not evenly. The classification data shows most claims are framed under general data-processing and data-transmission classes (G06F and H04L) rather than device-specific hardware classes, meaning many claims are written broadly enough to reach across cloud, IoT and edge implementations. Device-specific classes such as memory (G11C) and measurement (G01R) carry far fewer records, so hardware-level implementations in those spaces face less direct claim density from this dataset, though that does not guarantee freedom-to-operate without a dedicated search.
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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.