Strategic Infrastructure

AI Tools & Applications

AI tools and applications are software and systems that leverage artificial intelligence techniques to perform tasks such as analysis, prediction, automation and decision-making across domains. One of the capabilities of Communications & Digital Infrastructure.

International families: 228k2015 to 2024
Leading country: United States1.2× the next
All families: 1.30Mhome filings included
Over five years: Rising2020 to 2024 against the five before

Year by year

Patent families by country of origin and the year of the earliest filing, 2000 to 2025; 2025 is a part year, still filling in. International families are those for which protection was sought beyond one country.

Volume

International patent families in the capability, by the year of the earliest filing.

Source: Global Institute for National Capability (GINC), 2026. Underlying patents from 107 patent offices, IFI CLAIMS and Google

Share by country

Each country's share of the year's international families, in per cent: the capability's five largest countries of origin, 2015 to 2024, and the rest of the world.

Source: Global Institute for National Capability (GINC), 2026. Underlying patents from 107 patent offices, IFI CLAIMS and Google

Country leaderboard

International patent families, 2015 to 2024, by country of origin. Growth compares the latest five full years with the five before.

Ten largest

United States

China

Japan

South Korea

Germany

Taiwan

France

United Kingdom

Canada

Sweden

59,104

48,655

39,220

27,537

12,086

5,734

4,364

3,546

3,241

2,769


1	United States	59,104	25.9%	1.4×	134,719
2	China	48,655	21.4%	1.9×	935,351
3	Japan	39,220	17.2%	1.2×	57,711
4	South Korea	27,537	12.1%	2.0×	94,709
5	Germany	12,086	5.3%	1.8×	18,542
6	Taiwan	5,734	2.5%	1.3×	9,947
7	France	4,364	1.9%	1.6×	5,843
8	United Kingdom	3,546	1.6%	1.3×	4,747
9	Canada	3,241	1.4%	1.6×	4,954
10	Sweden	2,769	1.2%	1.9×	3,107
11	Netherlands	2,342	1.0%	1.1×	2,936
12	Israel	2,164	1.0%	1.4×	3,550
13	India	2,030	0.9%	1.8×	3,889
14	Switzerland	1,914	0.8%	2.0×	2,424
15	Singapore	1,847	0.8%	2.7×	2,479
16	Finland	1,501	0.7%	2.1×	1,714
17	Australia	1,070	0.5%	1.5×	1,502
18	Cayman Islands	1,002	0.4%	0.5×	1,171
19	Ireland	971	0.4%	0.8×	1,910
20	Italy	719	0.3%	1.8×	1,070
21	Russia	592	0.3%	0.7×	1,309
22	Türkiye	569	0.2%	3.7×	1,549
23	Hong Kong	453	0.2%	1.0×	689
24	Spain	444	0.2%	1.9×	578
25	Belgium	417	0.2%	0.9×	472
26	Austria	406	0.2%	1.8×	448
27	Denmark	372	0.2%	2.1×	433
28	Saudi Arabia	300	0.1%	2.2×	598
29	Norway	218	0.1%	0.9×	260
30	New Zealand	175	0.1%	3.1×	212
31	Portugal	169	0.1%	2.8×	204
32	Brazil	155	0.1%	1.3×	440
33	Poland	126	0.1%	1.7×	249
34	Malaysia	123	0.1%	1.0×	200
35	Luxembourg	97	0.0%	0.9×	135
36	Hungary	52	0.0%	1.6×	73
37	South Africa	49	0.0%	0.8×	57
38	Czechia	44	0.0%	1.1×	105
39	Mexico	36	0.0%	0.8×	117
40	Liechtenstein	23	0.0%	4.8×	24

Applicants

The largest applicants by international patent families, 2015 to 2024: across the world, then within each of the five countries with the most families in AI Tools & Applications. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.

Global

227,788 international families

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD · South Korea

HUAWEI TECH CO LTD · China

MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC · United States

NEC CORP · Japan

GOOGLE LLC · United States

BOSCH GMBH ROBERT · Germany

8,711

4,635

4,176

3,708

3,470

2,990

United States

59,104 international families

MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

GOOGLE LLC

GOOGLE INC

QUALCOMM INC

IBM

INTEL CORP

4,147

3,441

1,945

1,902

1,900

1,583

China

48,655 international families

HUAWEI TECH CO LTD

PING AN TECH SHENZHEN CO LTD

TENCENT TECH SHENZHEN CO LTD

BEIJING BAIDU NETCOM SCI & TECH CO LTD

BOE TECHNOLOGY GROUP CO LTD

BEIJING ZITIAO NETWORK TECHNOLOGY CO LTD

4,442

2,346

1,852

1,755

1,664

1,186

Japan

39,220 international families

NEC CORP

CANON KK

TOYOTA MOTOR CORP

TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD

FUJITSU LTD

SONY CORP

3,448

2,481

2,432

2,405

2,380

1,736

South Korea

27,537 international families

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD

LG ELECTRONICS INC

HYUNDAI MOTOR CO LTD

KIA CORP

KIA MOTORS CORP

ELECTRONICS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS RES INST

8,679

2,026

1,546

1,188

894

889

Germany

12,086 international families

BOSCH GMBH ROBERT

SIEMENS AG

ROBERT BOSCH CO LTD

5.1% shared · 12,069 families in both

United States

China

South Korea

Japan

United Kingdom

8,142

3,957

2,955

2,347

895

Crosswalk

How AI Tools & Applications is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 731 Cooperative entries in all. A patent family counts when any of its codes, in either scheme and at any office, falls under one of them. Codes since retired are placed under the entries that replaced them.

Entry	Title in the scheme	Why it is chosen	CPC codes	IPC codes	Documents
G06N	Computing arrangements based on specific computational models	Machine learning, neural networks and knowledge-based computing	92	67	4,026,453
G06V	Image or video recognition or understanding	Image and video recognition	691	189	4,093,585
G06F18/00	Pattern recognition	Pattern recognition	165	47	1,480,572
G06F40/00	Handling natural language data	Natural language processing	68	68	835,945
G10L15/00	Speech recognition	Speech recognition	61	29	593,880
G06N10/00	Quantum computing, i.e. information processing based on quantum-mechanical phenomena	Left out

CPC and IPC codes are the codes in use on patent documents, at any office, that fall under the entry. Documents is the larger of the two schemes' counts of documents carrying one of them. An entry with no IPC codes can be told apart only in the Cooperative scheme.

The Cooperative codes in use that count towards AI Tools & Applications: 1,077 codes on 11,024,747 documents. The 150 most used are listed; the full list is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.

Code	Title	Under entry	How placed	Documents
G06N3/08	Learning methods	G06N	In the scheme	499,151
G06N3/045	Combinations of networks	G06N	In the scheme	434,000
G06N20/00	Machine learning	G06N	In the scheme	375,730
G06N3/0464	Convolutional networks [CNN, ConvNet]	G06N	In the scheme	344,175
G06V10/82	Arrangements for image or video recognition or understanding using pattern recognition or machine learning using neural networks	G06V	In the scheme	281,049
G06N3/09	Supervised learning	G06N	In the scheme	198,361
G06F18/214	Generating training patterns; Bootstrap methods, e.g. bagging or boosting	G06F18/00	In the scheme	196,561
G06N3/084	Backpropagation, e.g. using gradient descent	G06N	In the scheme	186,248
G06V10/764	Arrangements for image or video recognition or understanding using pattern recognition or machine learning using classification, e.g. of video objects	G06V	In the scheme	168,002
G06F18/22	Matching criteria, e.g. proximity measures	G06F18/00	In the scheme	136,478
G06N3/0455	Auto-encoder networks; Encoder-decoder networks	G06N	In the scheme	121,174
G06F40/30	Semantic analysis	G06F40/00	In the scheme	117,904
G06N3/0442	Recurrent networks, e.g. Hopfield networks characterised by memory or gating, e.g. long short-term memory [LSTM] or gated recurrent units [GRU]	G06N	In the scheme	112,568
G10L15/22	Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue	G10L15/00	In the scheme	102,828
G06N3/044	Recurrent networks, e.g. Hopfield networks	G06N	In the scheme	99,485
G06N3/04	Architecture, e.g. interconnection topology	G06N	In the scheme	98,739
G06V10/774	Generating sets of training patterns; Bootstrap methods, e.g. bagging or boosting	G06V	In the scheme	98,708
G06F18/24	Classification techniques	G06F18/00	In the scheme	96,186
G06V20/52	Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects	G06V	In the scheme	91,298
G06N3/048	Activation functions	G06N	In the scheme	88,885
G06V10/25	Determination of region of interest [ROI] or a volume of interest [VOI]	G06V	In the scheme	88,478
G06F18/213	Feature extraction, e.g. by transforming the feature space; Summarisation; Mappings, e.g. subspace methods	G06F18/00	In the scheme	88,288
G06N7/01	Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks	G06N	In the scheme	80,298
G06V10/806	Fusion, i.e. combining data from various sources at the sensor level, preprocessing level, feature extraction level or classification level of extracted features	G06V	In the scheme	74,574
G10L15/26	Speech to text systems	G10L15/00	In the scheme	74,502
G06N3/006	Artificial life, i.e. computing arrangements simulating life based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]	G06N	In the scheme	72,180
G06N5/04	Inference or reasoning models	G06N	In the scheme	72,133
G06F18/241	Classification techniques relating to the classification model, e.g. parametric or non-parametric approaches	G06F18/00	In the scheme	71,485
G06F18/253	Fusion techniques of extracted features	G06F18/00	In the scheme	70,888
G06V10/44	Local feature extraction by analysis of parts of the pattern, e.g. by detecting edges, contours, loops, corners, strokes or intersections; Connectivity analysis, e.g. of connected components	G06V	In the scheme	69,988
G06N5/01	Dynamic search techniques; Heuristics; Dynamic trees; Branch-and-bound	G06N	In the scheme	67,635
G06N3/063	Physical realisation, i.e. hardware implementation of neural networks, neurons or parts of neurons using electronic means	G06N	In the scheme	64,989
G06N20/20	Ensemble learning	G06N	In the scheme	62,118
G06V20/58	Recognition of moving objects or obstacles, e.g. vehicles or pedestrians; Recognition of traffic objects, e.g. traffic signs, traffic lights or roads	G06V	In the scheme	61,610
G06V20/56	Context or environment of the image exterior to a vehicle by using sensors mounted on the vehicle	G06V	In the scheme	60,909
G06V40/172	Classification, e.g. identification	G06V	In the scheme	60,422
G06N3/0499	Feedforward networks	G06N	In the scheme	59,717
G06N5/022	Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition	G06N	In the scheme	59,627
G06N3/0475	Generative networks	G06N	In the scheme	57,233
G06V40/10	Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands	G06V	In the scheme	55,886
G06V10/454	Integrating the filters into a hierarchical structure, e.g. convolutional neural networks [CNN]	G06V	In the scheme	54,390
G06N3/047	Probabilistic or stochastic networks	G06N	In the scheme	54,138
G06V10/40	Extraction of image or video features	G06V	In the scheme	54,094
G06V2201/07	Target detection	G06V	In the scheme	53,942
G10L2015/223	Execution procedure of a spoken command	G10L15/00	In the scheme	53,661
G06V40/20	Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition	G06V	In the scheme	53,328
G06V10/26	Segmentation of patterns in the image field; Cutting or merging of image elements to establish the pattern region, e.g. clustering-based techniques; Detection of occlusion	G06V	In the scheme	51,444
G06F18/23	Clustering techniques	G06F18/00	In the scheme	50,932
G06N3/092	Reinforcement learning	G06N	In the scheme	50,116
G06N3/088	Non-supervised learning, e.g. competitive learning	G06N	In the scheme	49,703
G06V10/761	Proximity, similarity or dissimilarity measures	G06V	In the scheme	48,018
G06F40/284	Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates	G06F40/00	In the scheme	46,881
G06N3/042	Knowledge-based neural networks; Logical representations of neural networks	G06N	In the scheme	46,424
G06N3/082	Learning methods modifying the architecture, e.g. adding, deleting or silencing nodes or connections	G06N	In the scheme	44,882
G06N20/10	Machine learning using kernel methods, e.g. support vector machines [SVM]	G06N	In the scheme	43,577
G06N3/096	Transfer learning	G06N	In the scheme	43,567
G06V20/46	Extracting features or characteristics from the video content, e.g. video fingerprints, representative shots or key frames	G06V	In the scheme	42,712
G06V20/20	Scenes; Scene-specific elements in augmented reality scenes	G06V	In the scheme	42,246
G06F18/10	Pre-processing; Data cleansing	G06F18/00	In the scheme	41,589
G06V40/161	Detection; Localisation; Normalisation	G06V	In the scheme	41,293
G06F18/2415	Classification techniques relating to the classification model, e.g. parametric or non-parametric approaches based on parametric or probabilistic models, e.g. based on likelihood ratio or false acceptance rate versus a false rejection rate	G06F18/00	In the scheme	40,290
G06N3/02	Neural networks	G06N	In the scheme	39,334
G06N3/094	Adversarial learning	G06N	In the scheme	39,155
G06F18/23213	Non-hierarchical techniques using statistics or function optimisation, e.g. modelling of probability density functions with fixed number of clusters, e.g. K-means clustering	G06F18/00	In the scheme	38,504
G06V20/41	Higher-level, semantic clustering, classification or understanding of video scenes, e.g. detection, labelling or Markovian modelling of sport events or news items	G06V	In the scheme	38,467
G06N3/126	Evolutionary algorithms, e.g. genetic algorithms or genetic programming	G06N	In the scheme	37,714
G06V40/168	Feature extraction; Face representation	G06V	In the scheme	37,597
G06V20/64	Three-dimensional [3D] objects	G06V	In the scheme	37,361
G06V10/56	Extraction of image or video features relating to colour	G06V	In the scheme	37,285
G06V30/10	Character recognition	G06V	In the scheme	37,186
G06F18/2433	Single-class perspective, e.g. one-against-all classification; Novelty detection; Outlier detection	G06F18/00	In the scheme	37,139
G06V20/588	Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road	G06V	In the scheme	37,051
G06F40/289	Phrasal analysis, e.g. finite state techniques or chunking	G06F40/00	In the scheme	36,942
G06F40/166	Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting	G06F40/00	In the scheme	36,519
G06N3/0895	Weakly supervised learning, e.g. semi-supervised or self-supervised learning	G06N	In the scheme	36,087
G06V20/10	Terrestrial scenes	G06V	In the scheme	35,702
G06F18/2411	Classification techniques relating to the classification model, e.g. parametric or non-parametric approaches based on the proximity to a decision surface, e.g. support vector machines	G06F18/00	In the scheme	34,503
G06F18/25	Fusion techniques	G06F18/00	In the scheme	33,873
G06F18/217	Validation; Performance evaluation; Active pattern learning techniques	G06F18/00	In the scheme	32,047
G06N3/0495	Quantised networks; Sparse networks; Compressed networks	G06N	In the scheme	31,938
G06V40/16	Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions	G06V	In the scheme	31,528
G06F40/205	Parsing	G06F40/00	In the scheme	31,124
G06F40/279	Recognition of textual entities	G06F40/00	In the scheme	30,631
G06N3/049	Temporal neural networks, e.g. delay elements, oscillating neurons or pulsed inputs	G06N	In the scheme	30,357
G06N5/02	Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation	G06N	In the scheme	30,143
G06V20/40	Scenes; Scene-specific elements in video content	G06V	In the scheme	29,254
G06F18/24323	Tree-organised classifiers	G06F18/00	In the scheme	29,148
G06V20/70	Labelling scene content, e.g. deriving syntactic or semantic representations	G06V	In the scheme	28,649
G06F40/295	Named entity recognition	G06F40/00	In the scheme	28,205
G06N3/0985	Hyperparameter optimisation; Meta-learning; Learning-to-learn	G06N	In the scheme	28,127
G06N5/041	Abduction	G06N	In the scheme	27,869
G06V2201/03	Recognition of patterns in medical or anatomical images	G06V	In the scheme	27,506
G10L15/063	Training	G10L15/00	In the scheme	27,152
G06F18/2431	Multiple classes	G06F18/00	In the scheme	26,922
G10L15/02	Feature extraction for speech recognition; Selection of recognition unit	G10L15/00	In the scheme	26,747
G06F40/186	Templates	G06F40/00	In the scheme	26,736
G06F18/15	Statistical pre-processing, e.g. techniques for normalisation or restoring missing data	G06F18/00	In the scheme	26,656
G06F40/216	Parsing using statistical methods	G06F40/00	In the scheme	26,216
G06V10/7715	Feature extraction, e.g. by transforming the feature space, e.g. multi-dimensional scaling [MDS]; Mappings, e.g. subspace methods	G06V	In the scheme	25,860
G06V40/103	Static body considered as a whole, e.g. static pedestrian or occupant recognition	G06V	In the scheme	25,762
G06V20/13	Satellite images	G06V	In the scheme	25,697
G06V10/751	Comparing pixel values or logical combinations thereof, or feature values having positional relevance, e.g. template matching	G06V	In the scheme	25,265
G06F18/27	Regression, e.g. linear or logistic regression	G06F18/00	In the scheme	25,261
G06V40/28	Recognition of hand or arm movements, e.g. recognition of deaf sign language	G06V	In the scheme	25,130
G06V40/171	Local features and components; Facial parts ; Occluding parts, e.g. glasses; Geometrical relationships	G06V	In the scheme	25,068
G06F40/58	Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation	G06F40/00	In the scheme	24,693
G06N5/025	Extracting rules from data	G06N	In the scheme	24,062
G06V10/267	Segmentation of patterns in the image field; Cutting or merging of image elements to establish the pattern region, e.g. clustering-based techniques; Detection of occlusion by performing operations on regions, e.g. growing, shrinking or watersheds	G06V	In the scheme	23,946
G10L15/30	Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications	G10L15/00	In the scheme	23,946
G06N3/098	Distributed learning, e.g. federated learning	G06N	In the scheme	23,775
G06V10/462	Salient features, e.g. scale invariant feature transforms [SIFT]	G06V	In the scheme	22,326
G10L15/16	Speech classification or search using artificial neural networks	G10L15/00	In the scheme	22,269
G06V20/17	Terrestrial scenes taken from planes or by drones	G06V	In the scheme	21,988
G06V10/30	Noise filtering	G06V	In the scheme	21,681
G06V40/1318	Sensors therefor using electro-optical elements or layers, e.g. electroluminescent sensing	G06V	In the scheme	21,581
G06F40/35	Discourse or dialogue representation	G06F40/00	In the scheme	21,443
G06V10/762	Arrangements for image or video recognition or understanding using pattern recognition or machine learning using clustering, e.g. of similar faces in social networks	G06V	In the scheme	21,350
G06V40/174	Facial expression recognition	G06V	In the scheme	20,977
G06F40/40	Processing or translation of natural language	G06F40/00	In the scheme	20,764
G06V10/22	Image preprocessing by selection of a specific region containing or referencing a pattern; Locating or processing of specific regions to guide the detection or recognition	G06V	In the scheme	20,517
G06V40/1365	Matching; Classification	G06V	In the scheme	20,273
G06F18/2135	Feature extraction, e.g. by transforming the feature space; Summarisation; Mappings, e.g. subspace methods based on approximation criteria, e.g. principal component analysis	G06F18/00	In the scheme	19,972
G06V40/1306	Sensors therefor non-optical, e.g. ultrasonic or capacitive sensing	G06V	In the scheme	19,717
G06V40/18	Eye characteristics, e.g. of the iris	G06V	In the scheme	19,593
G06V10/776	Validation; Performance evaluation	G06V	In the scheme	19,590
G06V40/19	Sensors therefor	G06V	In the scheme	19,543
G06V20/597	Recognising the driver's state or behaviour, e.g. attention or drowsiness	G06V	In the scheme	19,393
G10L15/08	Speech classification or search	G10L15/00	In the scheme	19,332
G06F40/174	Form filling; Merging	G06F40/00	In the scheme	19,325
G06V10/75	Organisation of the matching processes, e.g. simultaneous or sequential comparisons of image or video features; Coarse-fine approaches, e.g. multi-scale approaches; using context analysis; Selection of dictionaries	G06V	In the scheme	19,280
G06V40/166	Detection; Localisation; Normalisation using acquisition arrangements	G06V	In the scheme	19,260
G06F18/20	Analysing	G06F18/00	In the scheme	19,174
G06F40/103	Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents	G06F40/00	In the scheme	19,092
G06V40/23	Recognition of whole body movements, e.g. for sport training	G06V	In the scheme	18,430
G06F40/143	Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]	G06F40/00	In the scheme	18,406
G06F40/211	Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars	G06F40/00	In the scheme	18,362
G06V20/188	Vegetation	G06V	In the scheme	18,220
G06F40/169	Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes	G06F40/00	In the scheme	18,143
G10L2015/088	Word spotting	G10L15/00	In the scheme	17,766
G06F18/251	Fusion techniques of input or preprocessed data	G06F18/00	In the scheme	17,661
G06F40/106	Display of layout of documents; Previewing	G06F40/00	In the scheme	17,353
G06V10/62	Extraction of image or video features relating to a temporal dimension, e.g. time-based feature extraction; Pattern tracking	G06V	In the scheme	17,237
G10L15/1822	Parsing for meaning understanding	G10L15/00	In the scheme	16,636
G06V20/54	Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects of traffic, e.g. cars on the road, trains or boats	G06V	In the scheme	16,519
G06V40/193	Preprocessing; Feature extraction	G06V	In the scheme	16,477
G06V2201/08	Detecting or categorising vehicles	G06V	In the scheme	16,321
G06V10/20	Image preprocessing	G06V	In the scheme	16,112
G06V10/143	Sensing or illuminating at different wavelengths	G06V	In the scheme	16,100
G06F40/242	Dictionaries	G06F40/00	In the scheme	15,986
G06F40/18	Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting of tables; using ruled lines of spreadsheets	G06F40/00	In the scheme	15,937

Match: Direct

The capability is itself a technology or a kind of physical system, and the classification names it. Quantum computing is carved out of G06N; overlaps the AI group in Critical Technology. The crosswalk is a first pass that nobody has reviewed.

AI Tools & Applications

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China

Japan

South Korea

Germany

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