Vehicle Connectivity Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 30.7% of all 3,145 records sit with just five assignees, so the field reads as concentrated at the top with a long tail behind it.
- Filing held essentially flat, 296 records in 2021 versus 292 in 2024 — a -1% span, not the drop-off a raw year-over-year chart of the tail years would suggest.
- G06F digital-processing claims cover 35.4% of records, while traffic-control (G08G) and checking-device (G07C) classes sit under 17%, marking where claim density thins out.
Filing growth compares 2021 (296 records) with 2024 (292) — 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 3,145 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape draws on 3,145 published records filed against vehicle connectivity and vehicle software terms — source code, software modules, test cases, deployment pipelines, vehicle speed and traction torque — combined with connectivity language. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-08-31 cut-off, and because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years are undercounted by construction, not because activity actually dropped.
Records here range from telematics-based software configuration management to hybrid vehicle control and traffic systems, filed through national offices and the PCT route. The receiving-office mix is heavily US-weighted, with meaningful volume also filed at the EPO and via WIPO, which points to applicants treating this as a multi-jurisdiction filing area rather than a single-market one.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,145-record set: how filing volume moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several classes, the technology shares add up to more than 100% of records — that is expected and reflects genuine claim overlap between software, control and communications categories.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Volume ran from 147 records in 2017 to a peak of 352 in 2023, then eased toward 2024's 292 — a -1% move from 2021's 296, effectively flat rather than declining. The 2025 and 2026 figures are partial by construction and should not be read as a slowdown.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G06F (electric digital data processing) leads at 35.4% of the 3,145 records, followed by B60W (hybrid/joint vehicle control) at 23.8% and G05D (control of non-electric variables) at 17.9%. G06Q, H04W, H04L, G08G and G07C each sit in the 15-18% range, indicating the field splits fairly evenly between core software, vehicle control and communications once past the leading class.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,145 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vehicle Connectivity & Software Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vehicle connectivity & software patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
US20050216902A1 — Method and system for vehicle software configuration update management
The present invention provides a system and method of managing a software configuration update of a vehicle. A first software module is identified and vehicle configuration data representative of a first vehicle software configuration is retrieved. A determination is made whether the first software module is compatible with the first vehicle software configuration at a call center. A second vehicle software configuration is sent from the call center to a telematics unit via a wireless network based on the determination.Filed by General Motors, this 2005 filing predates most connectivity claims in the set and sits close to the root of the over-the-air update concept still litigated and designed around today.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160012465A1 | System and method for distributing, receiving, and using funds or credits and apparatus thereof | 2,563 |
| 2 | US20140032034A1 | Transportation using network of unmanned aerial vehicles | 1,753 |
| 3 | US20090140887A1 | Mapping Techniques Using Probe Vehicles | 866 |
| 4 | US7202776B2 | Method and system for detecting objects external to a vehicle | 778 |
| 5 | US7085637B2 | Method and system for controlling a vehicle | 764 |
| 6 | US20140309806A1 | Intelligent vehicle for assisting vehicle occupants | 753 |
| 7 | US20050065711A1 | Centralized facility and intelligent on-board vehicle platform for collecting, analyzing and distributing inf… | 725 |
| 8 | US6707421B1 | Driver information system | 710 |
| 9 | US6526352B1 | Method and arrangement for mapping a road | 701 |
| 10 | US20220126864A1 | Autonomous vehicle system | 680 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
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Read together, the concentration, trend and class figures point to a field where the top of the ranking is dense but the underlying technology categories are not equally crowded.
The top of the ranking is dense, the rest is a long tail
The five leading assignees account for 964 records, 30.7% of everything in scope, and the top ten hold 41.8%. Beyond that tenth position, filing counts drop quickly toward single-digit and single-filing entrants, which is the more common shape across the ranked 100.
Filing volume is flat, not declining
The peak year so far is 2023 at 352 records. The 2021-to-2024 comparison, the last span with complete data, shows a -1% change — essentially flat. Any apparent drop in 2025-2026 reflects publication lag, not a real pullback in filing.
Software processing claims dominate, control and comms follow
G06F digital-processing claims sit on more than a third of records. B60W vehicle-control claims and G05D non-electric control claims are the next densest, while G08G traffic-control and G07C checking-device classes are comparatively lighter at 16.1% and 15.1%.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vehicle connectivity & software patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Inc. | XU HAO | 6 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | XU CHANGLONG | 5 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | ZHOU YAN | 4 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | YANG LUANXIA | 4 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | WEI CHAO | 4 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | GUO SHAOZHEN | 4 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | ZHANG XIAOXIA | 3 |
| Qualcomm Inc. | YUAN FANG | 3 |
Co-assignee activity is limited: only 10 co-filing pairs appear across the dataset, most centred on one applicant filing jointly with individual named inventors rather than with other corporations — a sign that most connectivity and software claims here are filed solo rather than through joint development structures.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The ranked list covers 100 companies across the full 3,145-record set. A single leader holds 290 records, more than double the fifth-place total of 124 and well ahead of tenth place at 53 — the gap between first and fifth is steep, then the curve flattens.
One filer sits well clear of the field
The top-ranked assignee's 290 records are more than double the fifth-place count of 124, a gap that marks out a genuine leader rather than a cluster of near-equal filers at the top.
The top ten thins out fast after fifth
Fifth place holds 124 records; tenth place holds 53 — less than half. Positions six through ten collectively add far less volume than the first five, which is where most of the top-10's 41.8% share concentrates.
Even the most active recent filer is pulling back
The assignee most active in the latest year still logged a -70% year-over-year change, and several other historically large filers show no filings at all in the latest year. Given publication lag, this understates true recent activity but confirms no single filer is currently accelerating.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Inc. | 9 | -70% |
| Waymo LLC | 1 | — |
| State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company | 0 | -100% |
| Ford Global Technologies, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Flextronics International | 0 | — |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Aurora Labs Ltd. | 0 | — |
| International Intelligent Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape points to where claim density sits and where it thins out. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate position takes a closer read of specific claims.
Map the white space by sub-claim
Cross the under-claimed sub-areas against the leading assignees' actual claim scope to see whether a first-filed position is realistic in a given branch.
Explore in Eureka →Track the leading assignee's recent filings
The steep drop in the leader's latest-year activity is worth verifying against filings still working through publication lag before concluding the position has cooled.
Run a live search →Check design-around options against the representative record
US20050216902A1's software-configuration-update claims sit near the root of over-the-air update practice; any OTA-adjacent filing should be checked against it directly.
Open the full record →Common questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked list with 290 records, more than double the fifth-place count of 124. The top five assignees together hold 964 records, 30.7% of the 3,145 records in scope, and the top ten hold 41.8%. Beyond the top ten, filing counts fall off quickly into a long tail of smaller filers across the ranked 100 companies.
Filing volume peaked at 352 records in 2023 and has since eased, but the fair comparison is 2021 to 2024 — the last span with complete data — which shows 296 records against 292, a -1% change, essentially flat. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are partial and should not be read as a genuine decline.
G06F, electric digital data processing, covers 35.4% of the 3,145 records and is the single largest IPC subclass. B60W hybrid and joint vehicle control follows at 23.8%, with G05D non-electric control at 17.9%. Communications-related classes H04W and H04L each sit around 17%, and traffic-control (G08G) and checking-device (G07C) classes are comparatively lighter, both under 17%.
The lighter-claimed IPC classes in this dataset — G08G traffic control and G07C checking devices — sit well below the G06F and B60W core, suggesting less claim density in traffic-system integration and vehicle-check automation. Co-assignee filing is also rare, with only 10 joint-filing pairs across the whole set, which points to limited joint-development patent activity as a gap worth checking against a specific applicant's portfolio before filing.
US20050216902A1, filed by General Motors in 2005, claims a system and method for managing a vehicle software configuration update: identifying a software module, checking compatibility at a call center, and pushing an updated configuration to a telematics unit over a wireless network. It predates most connectivity filings in this dataset and sits close to the conceptual root of over-the-air vehicle software updates. Anyone filing OTA-update claims in this space should check scope against it directly rather than assume the concept is open.
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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.