Symbolic Execution Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Symbolic Execution and Constraint Solving Patents: Who Files, Where They File It
48.2% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 162 of 336 records in scope — filing here is concentrated at the top, not spread across a long tail. Filings rose from 10 in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2022, then declined — 2021's 20 fell to 14 by 2024, a 30% drop over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the recent-year dip should not be read as the field going quiet.
- 1MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC39
- 2INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION38
- 3VECTRA NETWORKS34
- 4GLOBAL SUPERCOMPUTING CORP29
- 5FUJITSU LTD22
See the full symbolic execution and constraint solving 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 on this landscape
How concentrated is patent ownership in symbolic execution and constraint solving?
It is fairly concentrated: the top 5 assignees hold 162 of the 336 records in scope, which is 48.2% of the field, and the top 10 hold 63.7%. The leading assignee alone holds 39 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 22. This means a new entrant is likely to run into a small set of established portfolios rather than finding open ground, particularly around core symbolic execution and constraint-solving mechanics.
Is filing activity in this field growing or shrinking?
Filings grew from 10 in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2022, then declined to 14 by 2024 — a 30% drop from 2021’s 20. However, 2025 and 2026 counts should not be read as continued decline: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent years are still filling in and any apparent slowdown in the last one to two years is at least partly an artefact of that lag.
Which technology areas overlap most with symbolic execution patents?
Nearly nine in ten records (89.6% of 336) fall under G06F, general electric digital data processing, confirming this is primarily a software-processing field. The next largest overlaps are H04L, digital information transmission, at 14.3%, and G06N, AI-based computing, at 6.3%. Smaller overlaps exist with business-process computing, navigation, radar/positioning, analogue computing and wireless networks, each under 3% of records, suggesting these are exploratory rather than established application areas.
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 Symbolic Execution and Constraint Solving 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.