Zero Trust Access Architecture Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
Zero Trust Access Architecture Patents: Who Holds the Claims and Where Filing Is Heading
42.9% concentration. The top five assignees combined hold 285 of 664 records in scope — a field where a handful of filers have staked out policy decision and enforcement point claims early. Annual filings climbed from 12 in 2017 to a peak of 107 in 2024, with the three-year run from 2021 (44) to 2024 (107) marking a 143% increase. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up with filing.
- 1ZSCALER INC147
- 2TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)63
- 3QOMPLX INC26
- 4SOPHOS LTD26
- 5CISCO TECHNOLOGY INC23
See the full zero trust access architecture 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 zero trust access architecture patents
Who holds the most patents in zero trust access architecture?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 147 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 23 and the tenth-place holder at 13. The top five assignees combined account for 285 of the 664 records in scope, or 42.9% of the field, which means a small number of filers set much of the early direction on policy decision and enforcement point claims. Below the top 10, which together hold 54.7% of records, the field thins quickly into companies with only one or two filings each.
Is the zero trust patent field still growing?
Yes: filings rose from 44 in 2021 to 107 in 2024, a 143% increase over three years and the fastest growth period documented in this dataset. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is not a real slowdown — publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent years are still incomplete and will revise upward as more filings publish. 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as a complete data point.
What technology areas do zero trust patents mostly fall under?
H04L, digital information transmission, appears in 74.4% of the 664 records, making it by far the dominant classification, followed by G06F (electric digital data processing) at 33.9% and H04W (wireless communication networks) at 17.6%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%. Notably, G06N (AI-based computing) covers only 1.8% of records, suggesting that context-aware and adaptive policy logic is mostly claimed as conventional data processing rather than as machine learning.
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 Zero Trust Access Architecture 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.