Ownership is concentrated but not monopolised: the top-ranked assignee holds 24 of the 287 records in scope, the fifth-ranked holder has 18, and the tenth-ranked holder has 8. Together the five leading assignees account for 38.7% of all records, and the top ten account for 59.2%. Beyond that group, the ranking includes 99 companies in total, meaning most of the remaining records are spread across a long tail of lower-volume filers. Anyone entering this space should expect the bulk of relevant prior art to sit with that top group rather than being evenly distributed.

Filing peaked at 19 records in 2019 and has declined since; from 2021 (10 records) to 2024 (4 records), the last complete filing year, volume fell 60%. That said, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in the trend are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline. A fair read is that the field cooled from its 2019 peak through 2024, with the most recent trajectory still uncertain.

Software and testing classes lead by record count: G06F (digital data processing) appears on 25.8% of the 287 records in scope, and G01N (material analysis & testing) on 12.9%. Mechanical-specific classes follow, including B64C (aeroplanes & helicopters) at 8.0%, and F04B (pumps) and G10K (acoustics) each at 7.7%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages sum to more than 100% and should each be read against the 287-record total rather than against one another.