Trade & Investment

Digital Trade & E-Commerce

The capacity to trade through platforms: cross-border electronic commerce, the digital agreements that enable it and the platform economy through which small firms reach the world. One of the capabilities of Digital & Services Trade.

International families: 22k2015 to 2024
Leading country: United States1.3× the next
All families: 124khome filings included
Over five years: Steady2020 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

Japan

South Korea

China

Canada

Germany

India

France

Taiwan

United Kingdom

6,376

4,793

3,598

2,845

590

475

328

326

319

296


1	United States	6,376	28.6%	0.8×	16,644
2	Japan	4,793	21.5%	1.2×	15,711
3	South Korea	3,598	16.1%	1.8×	25,943
4	China	2,845	12.8%	0.9×	57,359
5	Canada	590	2.6%	1.2×	1,060
6	Germany	475	2.1%	0.9×	947
7	India	328	1.5%	1.2×	508
8	France	326	1.5%	0.9×	551
9	Taiwan	319	1.4%	0.6×	982
10	United Kingdom	296	1.3%	0.8×	464
11	Cayman Islands	278	1.2%	0.1×	313
12	Singapore	249	1.1%	1.3×	300
13	Australia	232	1.0%	0.9×	451
14	Türkiye	154	0.7%	1.8×	319
15	Israel	151	0.7%	0.9×	239
16	Switzerland	145	0.6%	0.9×	218
17	Italy	117	0.5%	1.3×	271
18	Sweden	110	0.5%	0.9×	145
19	Netherlands	82	0.4%	0.7×	126
20	Hong Kong	80	0.4%	0.2×	100
21	Ireland	73	0.3%	0.4×	113
22	Finland	64	0.3%	0.5×	81
23	Russia	57	0.3%	0.5×	118
24	South Africa	41	0.2%	1.0×	46
25	Spain	37	0.2%	0.5×	56
26	Brazil	35	0.2%	0.5×	122
27	Belgium	34	0.2%	1.3×	60
28	Malaysia	29	0.1%	1.4×	41
29	Austria	27	0.1%	2.0×	34
30	New Zealand	27	0.1%	0.9×	30
31	Saudi Arabia	26	0.1%	12×	39
32	Poland	23	0.1%	0.5×	37
33	Denmark	22	0.1%	1.2×	24
34	Norway	20	0.1%	0.8×	25
35	Portugal	13	0.1%	0.6×	16
36	Luxembourg	12	0.1%	0.2×	20
37	Mexico	12	0.1%	0.5×	24
38	Hungary	6	0.0%	0.0×	10
39	Czechia	5	0.0%	0.3×	15
40	Liechtenstein	2	0.0%	1.0×	3

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 Digital Trade & E-Commerce. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.

Global

22,312 international families

COUPANG CORP · South Korea

TOYOTA MOTOR CORP · Japan

TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD · Japan

NEC CORP · Japan

ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING LTD · China

TOSHIBA TEC KK · Japan

901

648

638

484

465

435

United States

6,376 international families

WALMART APOLLO LLC

MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INC

EBAY INC

WAL MART STORES INC

VISA INT SERVICE ASS

CAPITAL ONE SERVICES LLC

296

293

212

190

181

149

Japan

4,793 international families

TOYOTA MOTOR CORP

TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD

NEC CORP

TOSHIBA TEC KK

HONDA MOTOR CO LTD

PANASONIC IP MAN CO LTD

647

636

478

428

250

193

South Korea

3,598 international families

COUPANG CORP

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD

HYUNDAI MOTOR CO LTD

LG ELECTRONICS INC

KIA CORP

SK PLANET CO LTD

901

238

105

China

2,845 international families

ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING LTD

BEIJING DIDI INFINITY TECHNOLOGY & DEV CO LTD

PING AN TECH SHENZHEN CO LTD

TENCENT TECH SHENZHEN CO LTD

BEIJING YOUZHUJU NETWORK TECH CO LTD

BEIJING JINGDONG CENTURY TRADING CO LTD

129

121

120

119

118

114

Canada

United States

China

Germany

South Korea

5,464

3,990

2,382

2,036

1,428

Crosswalk

How Digital Trade & E-Commerce is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 53 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
G06Q30/06	Buying, selling or leasing transactions	Buying, selling and leasing transactions, including online shopping and auctions	49	6	556,944
G06Q20/12	Payment architectures specially adapted for electronic shopping systems	Payment systems for online shopping	4	1	55,928

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 Digital Trade & E-Commerce: 53 codes on 612,872 documents. The full crosswalk is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.

Code	Title	Under entry	How placed	Documents
G06Q30/06	Buying, selling or leasing transactions	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	102,391
G06Q30/0601	Electronic shopping [e-shopping]	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	66,565
G06Q30/0631	Recommending goods or services	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	56,394
G06Q30/0641	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	40,299
G06Q30/0635	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists replenishment orders; recurring orders	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	33,017
G06Q20/12	Payment architectures specially adapted for electronic shopping systems	G06Q20/12	In the scheme	31,679
G06Q30/08	Auctions	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	31,267
G06Q30/0633	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	30,311
G06Q30/0643	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	29,347
G06Q30/0645	Rental transactions; Leasing transactions	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	21,007
G06Q30/0621	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by configuring or customising goods or services	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	19,682
G06Q30/0613	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] using intermediate agents	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	17,456
G06Q30/0609	Qualifying participants for shopping transactions	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	14,276
G06Q30/0623	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	13,347
G06Q30/0639	Locating goods or services, e.g. based on physical position of the goods or services within a shopping facility	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	10,848
G06Q30/0603	Catalogue creation or management	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	10,823
G06Q30/0625	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	10,799
G06Q20/123	Shopping for digital content	G06Q20/12	In the scheme	10,256
G06Q30/0611	Request for offers or quotes	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	9,096
G06Q20/1235	Shopping for digital content with control of digital rights management [DRM]	G06Q20/12	In the scheme	8,606
G06Q30/0619	Neutral agent	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	8,063
G06Q30/0605	Pooling transaction partners, e.g. group buying or group selling	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	7,726
G06Q30/0627	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options by specifying product or service characteristics, e.g. product dimensions	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	5,705
G06Q30/0629	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options by pre-processing results, e.g. ranking or ordering results	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	5,678
G06Q20/127	Shopping or accessing services according to a time-limitation	G06Q20/12	In the scheme	5,387
G06Q30/0637	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists requiring approval before final submission, e.g. parental approval	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	3,507
G06Q30/0607	Regulating the sale of restricted items, e.g. alcohol	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	3,348
G06Q30/0617	Representative agent	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	2,679
G06Q30/0615	Anonymizing	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	701
G06Q30/06311	Recommending goods or services based on purchase or browsing history	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	442
G06Q30/06432	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation relative to a shopper model by virtually fitting wearable articles	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	365
G06Q30/06313	Recommending goods or services based on similarity of goods or services, e.g. substitute or alternate goods or services	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	243
G06Q30/06291	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options for generating comparative results	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	150
G06Q30/06442	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping by graphically simulating physical shopping environments, e.g. virtual malls by representing shoppers within virtual shopping environments, e.g. using shopper avatars	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	143
G06Q30/06431	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation relative to a shopper model	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	115
G06Q30/06211	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by configuring or customising goods or services using personal content of shoppers, e.g. personal photographs	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	111
G06Q30/0644	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping by graphically simulating physical shopping environments, e.g. virtual malls	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	102
G06Q30/06312	Recommending goods or services based on similarity with other shoppers	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	100
G06Q30/06333	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists virtual shopping carts	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	97
G06Q30/06331	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists wish lists; gift lists; product registries, e.g. wedding registries	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	92
G06Q30/06433	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation relative to real-world environments	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	80
G06Q30/06212	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by configuring or customising goods or services using seller-selected customisations	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	77
G06Q30/06444	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping for multi-user collaboration	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	59
G06Q30/06314	Recommending goods or services by determining complementary or compatible goods or services, e.g. accessory goods	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	58
G06Q30/0624	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] by investigating goods or services using guided investigation, e.g. hierarchical browsing of shopping information	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	57
G06Q30/06334	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists virtual shopping carts comprising goods or services offered by multiple providers, e.g. multiple merchants	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	50
G06Q30/06031	Aggregating catalogue data from multiple providers	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	48
G06Q30/06434	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation by previewing changes to the physical appearance of goods, e.g. altering colour	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	48
G06Q30/06315	Recommending goods or services gift recommendations, e.g. for a specific gift recipient	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	41
G06Q30/06032	Customer-specific catalogues	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	39
G06Q30/06332	Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists wish lists; gift lists; product registries, e.g. wedding registries comprising goods or services offered by multiple providers, e.g. multiple merchants	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	38
G06Q30/06443	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping by displaying shopping information with special effects, e.g. highlighting items in view	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	29
G06Q30/06435	Electronic shopping [e-shopping] utilising user interfaces specially adapted for shopping graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation by generating side-by-side comparisons of goods or services	G06Q30/06	In the scheme	28

Match: Through its tools

The classification names the equipment or technology the capability draws on, not the capability. The count says how much is being invented for it, not how well it is done. Counts e-commerce platform and online checkout technology; it cannot tell cross-border from domestic commerce. The crosswalk is a first pass that nobody has reviewed.

Other capabilities in Digital & Services Trade

Services Trade Capability
Data Flows & Digital Trade Governance
Tourism & Visitor Economy