Trusted Execution Environment Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- 29.6% sits with five filers. The top five assignees account for 4,425 of the 14,940 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and low-volume filers behind them.
- H04L and G06F dominate the classification mix. 60.4% of records carry a digital-transmission (H04L) class and 56.6% carry a data-processing (G06F) class, showing the field is built on communication security and core processing claims rather than niche hardware.
- Filing momentum has cooled from its 2020 peak. Annual filings ran from 1,656 in 2020 to 961 in 2024, a 36% pullback across 2021–2024, though the two most recent years are still filling in as publication catches up with filing.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,495 records) with 2024 (961) — 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 14,940 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
This landscape covers 14,940 published records matched against Trusted Execution Environment terms — secure enclave, TEE, attestation — combined with adjacent security concepts such as authentication tokens, encryption keys and secure communication. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, capturing the period in which TEEs moved from a mobile-payment niche into a general infrastructure primitive for cloud, edge and IoT security.
Records are drawn from filings across the United States, Europe, WIPO's PCT route, Germany, India and Austria, reflecting a field that is filed globally rather than concentrated in one jurisdiction. The mix of receiving offices and the classification spread below point to a technology that touches transmission protocols, core processing architectures and, increasingly, AI-adjacent and healthcare-adjacent applications.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 14,940 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry that volume.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 1,145 in 2017 to a peak of 1,656 in 2020, then eased to 961 by 2024 — a 36% decline across 2021–2024. The final two years in the chart are undercounted: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 will fill in as more records publish.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H04L (digital information transmission) and G06F (electric digital data processing) each cover more than half of all records — 60.4% and 56.6% respectively — confirming that most TEE activity is filed as communication-security or core-processing art. Wireless networks (H04W, 16.2%) and commerce/admin processing (G06Q, 15.4%) form a second tier, while AI-model computing (G06N, 3.7%) and healthcare informatics (G16H, 1.5%) remain comparatively small footprints. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the 14,940 records in scope.
Shares are the percentage of the 14,940 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Trusted Execution Environments Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about trusted execution environments patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
System, apparatus and method for controlling multiple trusted execution environments in a system
The filing describes a system that records a measurement of a virtual trusted execution environment, generates a secret sealed to that measurement's state, and uses the virtual TEE to create an isolated environment containing a secure enclave and an application. The application receives two measurement quotes — one tied to the virtual TEE, one tied to the secure enclave — and communicates that quote information to a remote attestation party.Filed by Intel Corporation, published 2016-12-01 as US20160350534A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190349426A1 | The internet of things | 1,106 |
| 2 | US20140289833A1 | Advanced authentication techniques and applications | 1,081 |
| 3 | US20210144517A1 | Multi-entity resource, security, and service management in edge computing deployments | 843 |
| 4 | US20160253651A1 | Electronic device including electronic payment system and operating method thereof | 782 |
| 5 | US20150178724A1 | Limited-use keys and cryptograms | 773 |
| 6 | US20200259896A1 | Industrial Automation with 5G and Beyond | 746 |
| 7 | US20220126864A1 | Autonomous vehicle system | 675 |
| 8 | US20150163121A1 | Distributed monitoring, evaluation, and response for multiple devices | 655 |
| 9 | US20180005186A1 | System and method for forming, storing, managing, and executing contracts | 629 |
| 10 | US20160275461A1 | Automated attestation of device integrity using the block chain | 582 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the concentration, classification and citation figures above, framed for where to file and what to watch.
The top of the field is dense, not closed
Five assignees hold 4,425 of the 14,940 records in scope, but that still leaves over two-thirds of the corpus spread across the ranked leaders and a long tail beyond them. New entrants are competing against a handful of large portfolios in attestation and enclave management, not a single incumbent.
Claims cluster on transmission and processing, not hardware alone
The dominant classes are digital transmission (H04L) and core data processing (G06F), meaning most TEE claim language is written around secure communication protocols and processing architecture rather than chip-level design. Filers targeting hardware root-of-trust claims sit in a smaller, less crowded slice of the classification mix.
Volume has pulled back from its 2020 peak
After peaking at 1,656 filings in 2020, annual volume fell to 961 by 2024, a decline that holds across the last full three years of data. That does not necessarily signal a cooling field — several leading assignees show sharp year-on-year drops in the most recent partial year, but those figures are still filling in as later publications land.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to trusted execution environments patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the momentum sits
The ranked leaders span device makers, cloud and mobile platform owners, and payment-network filers — a mix that reflects how far TEE claims have spread beyond their original secure-payment use case.
A single filer well ahead of the pack
The leading assignee's family count is more than five times the tenth-place total of 205, underscoring how much of the platform-level TEE architecture — attestation, enclave isolation, sealed storage — has already been claimed by one filer's portfolio.
A cluster of large platform and device owners
Positions two through five sit well below the leader but still command hundreds of records each, populated by mobile platform, cloud infrastructure and payment-network owners rather than component specialists — consistent with TEEs becoming shared infrastructure across sectors.
Sharp pullbacks in the latest partial year
Several of the largest historical filers show steep year-on-year drops in the most recent year tracked, but that year is still incomplete due to publication lag — a low count today does not mean the portfolio is inactive, only that its newest filings have not yet published.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 8 | -27% |
| Intel Corporation | 5 | -88% |
| Apple Inc. | 2 | -90% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson | 2 | — |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 1 | -95% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 1 | -91% |
| Visa International Service Association | 1 | -91% |
| McAfee LLC | 0 | -100% |
Turning this landscape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
The figures above describe where claim density already sits. The next step is checking a specific claim set or design against that density before committing engineering or legal resource.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top families
With 29.6% of records held by five assignees, a new attestation or enclave-management filing should be checked against those specific portfolios before drafting, not just against the field in general.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkTarget the under-claimed branches
AI-assisted attestation and healthcare-informatics enclaves carry a fraction of the record volume that H04L and G06F do, which is where a narrower, defensible first claim is more realistic.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about Trusted Execution Environment patents
This dataset covers 14,940 published records matched to Trusted Execution Environment and related security terms between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off. Filing volume peaked in 2020 at 1,656 records and eased to 961 by 2024, a 36% decline across that three-year span. The most recent one to two years in any such dataset are understated because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the true 2025 and 2026 totals will rise as more records publish.
The ranking covers 100 assignees, not a top-10 or top-50 cut, and one filer leads with 2,235 records — more than five times the tenth-place total of 205. The top five assignees together hold 4,425 records, or 29.6% of the 14,940 records in scope, but that still leaves the majority of the corpus spread across the remaining ranked leaders and a long tail of smaller filers. The leaders include major device, cloud-platform and payment-network companies rather than a single specialist vendor.
The bulk of the corpus sits in two IPC subclasses: H04L, digital information transmission, covering 60.4% of the 14,940 records, and G06F, electric digital data processing, covering 56.6%. Wireless communication networks (H04W) and business/admin data processing (G06Q) form a smaller second tier at 16.2% and 15.4%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total — they describe overlapping claim coverage, not mutually exclusive categories.
Filings rose from 1,145 in 2017 to a peak of 1,656 in 2020, then declined to 961 by 2024, a 36% pullback across the last three complete years of data. Several of the largest historical filers also show sharp year-on-year drops in the most recent tracked year. However, that latest year is still incomplete due to publication lag, so it is not yet possible to say whether the field is genuinely contracting or simply under-reported for the newest filings.
US20160350534A1, filed by Intel Corporation and published in December 2016, describes a system for controlling multiple trusted execution environments within one device. It covers recording a measurement of a virtual TEE, sealing a secret to that measurement's state, creating an isolated environment with a secure enclave and application inside the virtual TEE, and communicating linked measurement quotes to a remote attestation party. Anyone building multi-enclave attestation flows on a single system should review this filing's specific claim scope before assuming a design is clear of it.
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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.