Governance & Integrity

Legal Identity & Civil Registration

The capacity to know who exists: civil registration of births and deaths, legal identity for every person and the foundational registries on which every entitlement, election and protection stands. One of the capabilities of Government Effectiveness & Public Administration.

International families: 7852015 to 2024
Leading country: Germany2.4× the next
All families: 1,096home filings included
Over five years: Falling2020 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

Germany

France

United States

Japan

United Kingdom

Switzerland

China

Australia

Netherlands

South Korea

277

114


1	Germany	277	35.3%	0.4×	332
2	France	114	14.5%	1.3×	129
3	United States	94	12.0%	0.6×	134
4	Japan	93	11.8%	0.4×	210
5	United Kingdom	60	7.6%	0.1×	63
6	Switzerland	40	5.1%	0.2×	41
7	China	13	1.7%	0.3×	37
8	Australia	11	1.4%	0.2×	12
9	Netherlands	9	1.1%	0.5×	13
10	South Korea	8	1.0%	3.0×	53
11	Sweden	6	0.8%	1.0×	6
12	Canada	6	0.8%	0.5×	7
13	Austria	6	0.8%	0.5×	6
14	Poland	6	0.8%	1.0×	7
15	Italy	5	0.6%	0.7×	5
16	Spain	5	0.6%	0.3×	5
17	Singapore	5	0.6%	4.0×	5
18	Czechia	4	0.5%	–	4
19	Belgium	3	0.4%	0.0×	3
20	Türkiye	3	0.4%	2.0×	3
21	Russia	3	0.4%	0.0×	3
22	Ireland	2	0.3%	0.0×	3
23	Hungary	2	0.3%	–	2
24	Taiwan	1	0.1%	0.0×	1
25	Brazil	1	0.1%	–	1
26	Cayman Islands	1	0.1%	0.0×	1
27	Portugal	1	0.1%	–	1
28	Norway	0	0.0%	–	1

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 Legal Identity & Civil Registration. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.

Global

785 international families

BUNDESDRUCKEREI GMBH · Germany

GIESECKE & DEVRIENT CURRENCY TECHNOLOGY GMBH · Germany

DE LA RUE INT LTD · United Kingdom

GIESECKE DEVRIENT CURRENCY TECH GMBH · Germany

THALES DIS FRANCE SAS · France

TOPPAN PRINTING CO LTD · Japan

129

Germany

277 international families

BUNDESDRUCKEREI GMBH

GIESECKE & DEVRIENT CURRENCY TECHNOLOGY GMBH

GIESECKE DEVRIENT CURRENCY TECH GMBH

GIESECKE & DEVRIENT GMBH

GIESECKE & DEVRIENT EPAYMENTS GMBH

GIESECKE & DEVRIENT MOBILE SECURITY GMBH

129

France

114 international families

THALES DIS FRANCE SAS

IDEMIA FRANCE

THALES DIS FRANCE SA

IMPRIMERIE NAT

IDEMIA IDENTITY & SECURITY FRANCE

HID GLOBAL CID SAS

United States

94 international families

ENTRUST CORP

ENTRUST DATACARD CORP

Idemia Identity & Security USA LLC

CRANE & CO INC

ENTRUST LTD

MORPHOTRUST USA LLC

Japan

93 international families

TOPPAN PRINTING CO LTD

DAINIPPON PRINTING CO LTD

TOPPAN INC

SONY GROUP CORP

MITSUBISHI CHEM CORP

MGC FILSHEET CO LTD

United Kingdom

China

Japan

South Korea

Canada

1,064

181

104

Financial Strength

Payment & Market Infrastructure Oversight

0.1% shared · 13 families in both

United States

China

South Korea

Japan

Cayman Islands

6,452

2,381

1,618

1,604

589

Crosswalk

How Legal Identity & Civil Registration is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 2 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
B42D25/23	Identity cards	Identity cards	1	1	10,374
B42D25/24	Passports	Passports	1	1	7,276

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 Legal Identity & Civil Registration: 2 codes on 17,650 documents. The full crosswalk is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.

Code	Title	Under entry	How placed	Documents
B42D25/23	Identity cards	B42D25/23	In the scheme	10,374
B42D25/24	Passports	B42D25/24	In the scheme	7,276

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. Captures physical identity documents only, a small set; digital identity cannot be told apart from general authentication, and civil registration has no technology. The crosswalk is a first pass that nobody has reviewed.

Other capabilities in Government Effectiveness & Public Administration

Centre of Government & Policy Coordination
Civil Service & Public Workforce
Digital Government & Service Delivery
Statistical & Data Capability