Filing is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee in this dataset holds 50 of the 283 records in scope, and the top 5 of 63 ranked assignees together account for 44.2% of all records. Below that, the field spreads across a long tail of 53 further assignees, many with only a handful of filings each. This pattern suggests one or two established filers with sustained programmes, surrounded by newer or smaller entrants still staking narrower claims.

Filings rose steadily from 12 records in 2017 to a peak of 50 in 2022, then fell sharply, down -59% from 32 records in 2021 to 13 in 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete. Because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline. The safest read is that filing activity cooled significantly after 2022 rather than that it is still falling now.

Business, commerce and administrative data processing (IPC class G06Q) appears in 51.2% of the 283 records, making software-side orchestration logic the single largest claim category. Conveying and material handling equipment (B65G) follows at 33.6%, with control and regulating systems (G05B) at 15.5%. AI-based computing (G06N, 9.2%) and robotic manipulators (B25J, 7.4%) are present but represent a minority of filed claims, meaning most of the contested claim space is still in how systems decide and route, not in the physical hardware.