Storage Tiering and Caching Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Storage tiering and caching patents: who holds the claim space and where it is still open
52.2% concentration. The top 5 of 80 ranked assignees account for 218 of 418 records in scope, a leader-heavy field with a long tail below tenth place. Records rose from 23 in 2017 to a peak of 97 in 2019, then eased back; 2021 and 2024 both sit at 11 records, a flat three-year span rather than a falling one. The 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a drop-off.
- 1EMC IP HLDG CO LLC79
- 2ADVANCED NEW TECHNOLOGIES CO LTD63
- 3INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION31
- 4DELL PROD LP29
- 5FUJITSU LTD16
See the full storage tiering and caching 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 storage tiering and caching patents
How concentrated is the storage tiering and caching patent field?
It is concentrated at the top but not monopolised. The top 5 of 80 ranked assignees hold 218 of 418 records in scope, or 52.2%, and the top 10 hold 68.7%. Below tenth place, filing drops to single-digit and low-double-digit counts per assignee, so the field has a dense leadership tier and a long tail of smaller filers rather than one dominant owner.
Is patent filing in storage tiering and caching growing or slowing down?
Filing peaked in 2019 at 97 records and has since settled lower, with the most recent complete three-year window, 2021 to 2024, flat at 11 records each year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as a further decline. The honest read is a plateau after an early peak, not a shrinking field.
What patent classes cover storage tiering and caching inventions?
The overwhelming majority, 94.3% of the 418 records, fall under G06F, electric digital data processing, meaning most claims are filed as general computing inventions rather than a dedicated storage subclass. Smaller shares touch H04L (10.5%, digital transmission), G06N (3.1%, AI-based computing) and H03M (1.7%, coding and code conversion). Since a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
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 Storage Tiering and Caching 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.