- International families
- 1,8842015 to 2024
- Leading country
- United States1.7× the next
- All families
- 8,106home 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
United Kingdom
France
Switzerland
Canada
Netherlands
416
252
215
195
177
119
81
58
58
31
| 2000 to 2025 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 416 | 22.1% | 1.8× | 929 | |
| 2 | China | 252 | 13.4% | 1.7× | 5,354 | |
| 3 | Japan | 215 | 11.4% | 2.6× | 254 | |
| 4 | South Korea | 195 | 10.4% | 3.4× | 562 | |
| 5 | Germany | 177 | 9.4% | 3.4× | 227 | |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 119 | 6.3% | 1.8× | 147 | |
| 7 | France | 81 | 4.3% | 3.3× | 85 | |
| 8 | Switzerland | 58 | 3.1% | 1.4× | 61 | |
| 9 | Canada | 58 | 3.1% | 3.5× | 82 | |
| 10 | Netherlands | 31 | 1.6% | 6.8× | 34 | |
| 11 | Finland | 27 | 1.4% | 2.0× | 27 | |
| 12 | Israel | 26 | 1.4% | 3.3× | 45 | |
| 13 | Sweden | 24 | 1.3% | 3.8× | 24 | |
| 14 | Spain | 24 | 1.3% | 7.0× | 24 | |
| 15 | Singapore | 22 | 1.2% | 4.5× | 24 | |
| 16 | Taiwan | 20 | 1.1% | 4.0× | 28 | |
| 17 | Italy | 18 | 1.0% | 5.0× | 20 | |
| 18 | Austria | 17 | 0.9% | 0.7× | 18 | |
| 19 | Cayman Islands | 16 | 0.8% | 0.0× | 16 | |
| 20 | Russia | 14 | 0.7% | 1.0× | 43 | |
| 21 | Poland | 12 | 0.6% | 5.0× | 15 | |
| 22 | Australia | 11 | 0.6% | – | 11 | |
| 23 | India | 11 | 0.6% | – | 20 | |
| 24 | Ireland | 6 | 0.3% | – | 8 | |
| 25 | Hong Kong | 6 | 0.3% | 0.2× | 6 | |
| 26 | Türkiye | 5 | 0.3% | 1.5× | 6 | |
| 27 | Denmark | 4 | 0.2% | 3.0× | 4 | |
| 28 | Belgium | 3 | 0.2% | – | 3 | |
| 29 | South Africa | 2 | 0.1% | 1.0× | 2 | |
| 30 | Liechtenstein | 2 | 0.1% | – | 2 | |
| 31 | Norway | 1 | 0.1% | – | 1 | |
| 32 | Czechia | 1 | 0.1% | – | 2 | |
| 33 | Portugal | 1 | 0.1% | 0.0× | 2 | |
| 34 | Hungary | 1 | 0.1% | 0.0× | 1 | |
| 35 | Brazil | 0 | 0.0% | – | 1 | |
| 36 | Saudi Arabia | 0 | 0.0% | – | 1 | |
| 37 | Mexico | 0 | 0.0% | – | 2 |
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 Quantum Communication. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.
Global
1,884 international families
TOSHIBA KK · Japan
TOSHIBA CORP · Japan
LG ELECTRONICS INC · South Korea
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM AG · Germany
HUAWEI TECH CO LTD · China
NEC CORP · Japan
112
107
64
50
44
42
United States
416 international families
PSIQUANTUM CORP
INTEL CORP
IBM
UNIV ARIZONA
MASSACHUSETTS INST TECHNOLOGY
CORNING INC
25
23
21
19
18
14
China
252 international families
HUAWEI TECH CO LTD
CHINA TELECOM QUANTUM TECH CO LTD
QUANTUMCTEK CO LTD
CHINA TELECOM QUANTUM INFORMATION TECH GROUP CO LTD
CHINA ACADEMY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECH OF CETC
UNIV SOOCHOW
41
19
19
13
12
10
Japan
215 international families
TOSHIBA KK
TOSHIBA CORP
NEC CORP
NAT INST INF & COMM TECH
NIPPON TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE
TOSHIBA DIGITAL SOLUTIONS CORP
108
103
39
16
16
12
South Korea
195 international families
LG ELECTRONICS INC
ELECTRONICS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS RES INST
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD
KOREA INST SCI & TECH INF
KOREA ADVANCED INST SCI & TECH
KOREA INST OF SCIENCE AND TECH INFORMATION
64
27
11
10
7
7
Germany
177 international families
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM AG
HUAWEI TECH DUESSELDORF GMBH
FRAUNHOFER GES FORSCHUNG
BOSCH GMBH ROBERT
BUNDESDRUCKEREI GMBH
ELMOS SEMICONDUCTOR SE
50
31
20
6
6
5
Similar capabilities
The nine capabilities that share the most international patent families with Quantum Communication, 2015 to 2024: the families counted in both as a share of those counted in either. Each card shows its five largest countries.
Critical Technology
Quantum Computing
6.3% shared · 470 families in both
United States
Japan
China
Germany
France
2,335
791
484
336
322
Critical Technology
Post-Quantum Cryptography
2.4% shared · 54 families in both
South Korea
United States
France
Japan
Germany
98
86
52
46
30
Critical Technology
Privacy, Identity & Trust Technologies
1.9% shared · 1,354 families in both
United States
China
Japan
South Korea
Germany
20,167
13,819
8,702
6,734
3,966
Critical Technology
Advanced Optical Communication & Photonics
1.3% shared · 654 families in both
Japan
United States
China
Germany
South Korea
13,338
11,398
9,204
2,973
2,316
Strategic Infrastructure
Core & Backbone Networks
1.1% shared · 1,109 families in both
United States
China
Japan
South Korea
Germany
26,336
26,166
15,255
6,683
4,804
National Security
Command, Control & Communications
0.8% shared · 19 families in both
United States
China
Japan
South Korea
Germany
220
57
55
51
26
Critical Technology
Protective Cybersecurity Technologies
0.5% shared · 412 families in both
United States
China
Japan
South Korea
Germany
24,476
15,698
8,691
6,051
4,461
Critical Technology
Nanomaterials & Metamaterials
0.5% shared · 143 families in both
United States
South Korea
China
Japan
Taiwan
6,721
3,882
3,587
3,507
2,242
Critical Technology
Quantum Sensing & Metrology
0.5% shared · 15 families in both
United States
Japan
Germany
France
China
309
295
149
65
61
Crosswalk
How Quantum Communication is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H04B10/70 | Photonic quantum communication | Photonic quantum communication | 1 | 1 | 10,414 |
| H04L9/0852 | Quantum cryptography | Quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution | 3 | none | 23,285 |
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 Quantum Communication: 4 codes on 33,699 documents. The full crosswalk is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.
| Code | Title | Under entry | How placed | Documents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H04L9/0852 | Quantum cryptography | H04L9/0852 | In the scheme | 15,420 |
| H04B10/70 | Photonic quantum communication | H04B10/70 | In the scheme | 10,414 |
| H04L9/0858 | Details about key distillation or coding, e.g. reconciliation, error correction, privacy amplification, polarisation coding or phase coding | H04L9/0852 | In the scheme | 5,516 |
| H04L9/0855 | Quantum cryptography involving additional nodes, e.g. quantum relays, repeaters, intermediate nodes or remote nodes | H04L9/0852 | In the scheme | 2,349 |