U.S. patent activity continued its multi-year decline in 2025, with Apple receiving 2,722 patent grants—an 11 percent decrease from 2024. Is this a sign of slowing innovation, or a strategic shift?
Parent Filings and Grants Decline for Sixth Straight Year
For the third consecutive year, investment in artificial intelligence is dominating the narrative of corporate innovation, according to a new report.
- U.S. patent applications decreased by 8.6 percent in 2025, totaling 393,344.
- Overall patent grants dipped 0.2 percent to 323,272.
- Samsung Electronics led all companies with 7,054 patent grants.
- Taiwan experienced the highest growth rate in patent filings, exceeding 12 percent.
- IBM’s fall out of the top 10 marks the first time in over three decades.
Patent data and analytics firm IFI CLAIMS published its yearly report on U.S. patent activity, revealing the ongoing trend. The U.S. saw 393,344 patent applications in 2025, down 8.6 percent from 2024, while the number of patents actually granted slipped slightly, by 0.2 percent, to 323,272.
The United States, Japan, and China remain the leading countries for U.S.-granted patents. However, Taiwan demonstrated the most significant growth, with a surge of over 12 percent in patent activity.
Apple secured 2,722 patent grants in 2025, representing an 11.6 percent decrease compared to the 3,082 grants received in 2024. Samsung Electronics topped the list with 7,054 grants for the year, a 10.6 percent year-over-year increase. Following Samsung were TSMC, Qualcomm, Huawei, and Samsung Display. Canon, Toyota, Dell, and LG Electronics rounded out the top 10, with Apple in seventh place.
In a notable shift, IBM fell to 11th place, its first time outside the top 10 in more than 30 years. The company had previously held the number one spot for an impressive 29 consecutive years before being surpassed by Samsung in 2022.
However, those numbers don’t necessarily tell the story of a company that is faltering on invention. Rather, IBM has adopted an intentional patent strategy that turns away from the pursuit of racking up the greatest number of grants and focuses instead on just a few key areas such as cloud computing and AI.
Interestingly, despite the increasing demand for chips driven by AI, patents related to traditional chip technology (H01L) decreased by 20 percent year-over-year. Simultaneously, H10D—a category encompassing inorganic semiconductor devices like transistors and diodes—appeared on the top 20 lists for both patent grants and applications.
This shift could indicate a move towards next-generation chip technologies that go beyond conventional approaches. In 2025, TSMC, Samsung, IBM, and Intel were among the leading companies filing patents in the H10D space.
The full report from IFI CLAIMS can be found here.
