Stream Processing Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 25.3% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 521 of 2,056 records in scope — a quarter of the field sits with a small group, but three-quarters is still contested.
- +69% filing growth. Filings climbed from 146 in 2021 to 247 in 2024, the last year with a complete publication record — genuine acceleration, not a blip.
- G06F dominates, H03M and H04N barely register. 61.5% of records touch electric digital data processing, while coding/code-conversion and pictorial communication sit under 4% each — a sign of where claim space is still thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (146 records) with 2024 (247) — 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 2,056 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the stream processing patent record actually shows
Stream processing sits at the intersection of data pipeline engineering, real-time analytics and the infrastructure that keeps both auditable. The dataset behind this page spans 2,056 published records filed between 2015 and 2026, drawn from filings that combine stream or event processing language with data pipeline, lineage, validation or storage-engine claims. That combination matters: it separates patents about moving data fast from patents about proving what happened to it along the way.
Filing activity in this space has not plateaued. The trend runs from 81 records in 2017 to a peak of 247 in 2024, with growth of 69% between 2021 and 2024 alone. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the softer-looking 2025 and 2026 figures reflect that reporting gap rather than a real slowdown.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,056-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Volume rose from 81 records in 2017 to a peak of 247 in 2024. The three-year run from 2021 to 2024 shows 69% growth, the clearest read of underlying momentum before the publication lag starts to understate the most recent years.
IPC subclass composition
G06F (electric digital data processing) appears in 61.5% of the 2,056 records, with H04L (digital information transmission) at 23.9% and G06Q (business/admin data processing) at 22.1%. G06N (AI-based computing) reaches 19.4%, while G05B, H04W, H03M and H04N each sit under 8% — records can carry more than one class, so these figures sum past 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,056 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Stream Processing Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about stream processing patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a representative filing
Rollback recovery with data lineage capture for data pipelines
The filing describes a middle operator that receives ingested input events from a source operator, logs them to a middle operator input log with an incomplete status, then updates those log entries to a completed status once the events have been consumed to produce output events. That logging discipline is what makes rollback recovery possible when a pipeline stage fails partway through processing.Filed by SAP SE, published 2022-11-17 as US20220365851A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170006135A1 | Systems, methods, and devices for an enterprise internet-of-things application development platform | 1,905 |
| 2 | US20180027006A1 | System and method for securing an enterprise computing environment | 1,146 |
| 3 | US20060136570A1 | Runtime adaptable search processor | 704 |
| 4 | US8200527B1 | Method for prioritizing and presenting recommendations regarding organizaion's customer care capabilities | 667 |
| 5 | US20040165588A1 | Distributed network security system and a hardware processor therefor | 651 |
| 6 | US20050108518A1 | Runtime adaptable security processor | 528 |
| 7 | US7685254B2 | Runtime adaptable search processor | 468 |
| 8 | US20170039765A1 | System and method for real-time overlay of map features onto a video feed | 437 |
| 9 | US20110295722A1 | Methods, Apparatus, and Systems for Enabling Feedback-Dependent Transactions | 395 |
| 10 | US20040010612A1 | High performance IP processor using RDMA | 391 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a measure of influence within this corpus, not as a signal 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 data means for filing decisions
Three read-outs from the composition and trend data that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
The top of the field is not a monopoly
Five assignees combine for 521 of 2,056 records, and the top ten reach 749, or 36.4% of the field. That leaves nearly two-thirds of filings spread across a long tail — a workable position for a new entrant is still available, provided it avoids the specific claim territory the leaders already hold.
Momentum built steadily into 2024
Filings rose from 146 in 2021 to 247 in 2024, the last year the publication lag does not distort. That is sustained growth across three consecutive years rather than a single spike, consistent with stream processing moving from a niche infrastructure topic into a mainstream data-platform requirement.
Claims cluster in core data processing, thin out at the edges
G06F carries the majority of records, with H04L and G06Q both above 20%. By contrast H03M (coding/code conversion) and H04N (pictorial communication) sit at 3.6% and 3.4% — narrow bands of the field where far fewer claims have been staked.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to stream processing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits for new entrants
The assignee ranking spans 100 companies across the full 2,056-record set. Filing behaviour among the leaders has also been uneven in the most recent year — several top assignees show sharp year-over-year drops, which is more likely the publication lag catching up with them than a genuine pullback.
One assignee sets the pace, but not by an overwhelming margin
The leading assignee holds 161 of 2,056 records, well ahead of fifth place at 60 and tenth place at 37. The drop-off after the leader is gradual rather than a cliff, meaning the next few positions in the ranking are genuinely contestable.
The top ten is a mix of platform and vertical players
Assignees in this dataset span cloud infrastructure, financial services and industrial IoT platforms, reflecting how broadly stream processing claims now get filed outside pure data-infrastructure vendors.
Read recent drops with the publication lag in mind
Several of the most active historical filers show steep declines in the latest year, some down to zero. Given the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, this pattern is expected for the newest year of data and should not be read as those companies exiting the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp | 2 | -86% |
| Strong Force VCN Portfolio 2019 LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Splunk Inc | 0 | -100% |
| ATOMBEAM TECH INC | 0 | -100% |
| Fidelity Information Services LLC | 0 | -100% |
| PANDYA ASHISH A | 0 | — |
| Wejo Ltd | 0 | — |
| Enel X North America Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field that is still growing but increasingly concentrated at the top. Two practical next steps follow from that.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-10 cluster
With 36.4% of all records held by ten assignees, any new filing in core G06F/H04L territory should be checked against that group's claim scope before drafting.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkExplore the under-claimed branches directly
H03M, H04N and H04W each carry under 8% of records despite sitting adjacent to the core stream-processing claims — worth a closer look before committing to the crowded centre.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about stream processing patents
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 100 companies across 2,056 records, and the leading assignee holds 161 of them. That said, concentration is moderate rather than extreme: the top five combined hold 25.3% of all records, and the top ten hold 36.4%, leaving a substantial long tail of single- and low-volume filers. A freedom-to-operate review should look at the full ranked list, not just the single leader.
Filing activity grew substantially through the middle of the dataset's range, rising from 146 records in 2021 to 247 in 2024, a 69% increase over three years. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is a publication-lag artefact — patents typically take about 18 months to publish after filing, so those years are still incomplete rather than genuinely lower. Treat 2024 as the most recent reliable data point.
The dominant IPC class is G06F (electric digital data processing), appearing in 61.5% of the 2,056 records, followed by H04L (digital information transmission) at 23.9% and G06Q (business and administrative data processing) at 22.1%. AI-related computing under G06N appears in 19.4% of records. Narrower classes like H03M (coding/code conversion) and H04N (pictorial communication) each sit under 4%, marking them as comparatively under-claimed relative to the core cluster.
US20220365851A1, filed by SAP SE and published 2022-11-17, covers rollback recovery with data lineage capture for data pipelines. It claims a specific logging mechanism where a middle operator marks input events as incomplete on receipt and only updates them to completed once they have been consumed to produce output events. This is a fairly specific mechanism for pipeline fault recovery, not a broad claim over data lineage or rollback generally, so designing around it typically means using a different logging state model rather than avoiding lineage capture altogether.
Based on IPC composition, the branches with the lowest claim density relative to the core G06F/H04L/G06Q cluster are H03M (coding and code conversion), H04N (pictorial communication) and H04W (wireless communication networks), each under 8% of the 2,056 records. These sit adjacent to mainstream stream-processing claims but have not been as heavily claimed, which is worth investigating before filing into the more crowded core classes.
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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.