Vulnerability Management Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
Vulnerability Management and Reachability Patents
27.5% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 405 of 1,474 records in scope, but the next 95 ranked filers still add up to a long tail rather than a second tier. Annual filings rose from 62 records in 2017 to a peak of 167 in 2024, including the confirmed +34% increase from 2021 to 2024. Records published in 2025 and 2026 (39 so far) understate real filing activity because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months — treat the recent-year dip as a data artifact, not a real slowdown.
- 1QOMPLX INC8.7%
- 2INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION5.6%
- 3AS0001 INC5.4%
- 4FORESCOUT TECHNOLOGIES INC5.0%
- 5MCAFEE LLC2.8%
See the full vulnerability management and reachability 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 about this landscape
Who holds the most patents in vulnerability management and reachability?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 128 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 41. The top five combined hold 405 of the 1,474 records in scope, or 27.5%, while the top ten hold 36.6%. Beyond that, coverage spreads across a long tail of 90 more ranked companies, each holding comparatively small counts, so the field is led by one company rather than dominated by a tight top tier.
Is patent filing in vulnerability management still growing?
Yes, through the last year the data can treat as complete. Filings rose from 125 records in 2021 to 167 in 2024, a confirmed +34% increase. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is expected: patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those years will keep filling in as more applications publish and should not be read as a real slowdown yet.
What patent classes cover vulnerability scanning and reachability technology?
G06F (electric digital data processing) and H04L (digital information transmission) are by far the most common, each appearing in roughly two-thirds of the 1,474 records, since most inventions in this space combine general-purpose computing logic with network communication. G06N, covering AI-based computing, appears in only 13.3% of records, showing that machine-learning-driven approaches like exploit prediction are still a minority filing strategy compared to conventional scanning and scoring logic.
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 Vulnerability Management and Reachability 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.