Critical Technology

Resilient & Infrastructure-Independent Networks

The capacity to communicate when infrastructure fails or is denied: mesh and self-organising networks, undersea and hostile-environment communication, and links that need no fixed network. One of the capabilities of Connectivity, Cyber & Trust Technologies.

International families: 8,4682015 to 2024
Leading country: United States1.5× the next
All families: 28khome 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

United States

China

Japan

South Korea

Germany

Sweden

Taiwan

France

Finland

Netherlands

2,275

1,526

1,353

852

397

245

237

222

187

175


1	United States	2,275	26.9%	0.6×	4,174
2	China	1,526	18.0%	1.2×	16,274
3	Japan	1,353	16.0%	0.5×	2,305
4	South Korea	852	10.1%	0.6×	2,107
5	Germany	397	4.7%	0.6×	508
6	Sweden	245	2.9%	0.4×	250
7	Taiwan	237	2.8%	0.6×	295
8	France	222	2.6%	0.6×	271
9	Finland	187	2.2%	0.8×	199
10	Netherlands	175	2.1%	0.7×	187
11	United Kingdom	167	2.0%	0.2×	225
12	Canada	142	1.7%	0.3×	181
13	Switzerland	87	1.0%	0.9×	102
14	Singapore	83	1.0%	0.8×	112
15	Australia	62	0.7%	1.1×	89
16	Israel	49	0.6%	0.7×	72
17	India	44	0.5%	0.8×	172
18	Norway	36	0.4%	0.9×	40
19	Italy	35	0.4%	1.1×	55
20	Türkiye	35	0.4%	1.9×	47
21	Denmark	21	0.2%	0.6×	24
22	Belgium	21	0.2%	0.6×	22
23	Ireland	21	0.2%	0.6×	29
24	Spain	20	0.2%	0.3×	37
25	Hong Kong	17	0.2%	0.2×	21
26	Cayman Islands	17	0.2%	0.1×	18
27	Saudi Arabia	16	0.2%	0.5×	43
28	Austria	15	0.2%	0.7×	18
29	Poland	12	0.1%	1.0×	19
30	Brazil	11	0.1%	0.4×	23
31	Russia	9	0.1%	0.5×	61
32	Mexico	7	0.1%	0.4×	10
33	Portugal	7	0.1%	0.4×	9
34	New Zealand	6	0.1%	0.5×	6
35	Malaysia	4	0.0%	1.0×	8
36	South Africa	3	0.0%	0.0×	4
37	Luxembourg	3	0.0%	2.0×	3
38	Czechia	2	0.0%	–	3
39	Liechtenstein	1	0.0%	0.0×	1
40	Hungary	1	0.0%	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 Resilient & Infrastructure-Independent Networks. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.

Global

8,468 international families

HUAWEI TECH CO LTD · China

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD · South Korea

QUALCOMM INC · United States

ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M · Sweden

LG ELECTRONICS INC · South Korea

CANON KK · Japan

376

365

285

184

178

141

United States

2,275 international families

QUALCOMM INC

INTEL CORP

GOOGLE LLC

APPLE INC

HONEYWELL INT INC

INTEL IP CORP

271

China

1,526 international families

HUAWEI TECH CO LTD

VIVO MOBILE COMMUNICATION CO LTD

ZTE CORP

GUANGDONG OPPO MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP LTD

BEIJING XIAOMI MOBILE SOFTWARE CO LTD

OPPO GUANGDONG MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS CO LTD

367

103

Japan

1,353 international families

CANON KK

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP

NEC CORP

SONY CORP

TOSHIBA KK

FUJITSU LTD

141

103

South Korea

852 international families

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD

LG ELECTRONICS INC

HYUNDAI MOTOR CO LTD

KIA MOTORS CORP

ELECTRONICS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS RES INST

KIA CORP

365

178

Germany

Japan

South Korea

China

Germany

4,379

2,906

2,123

1,861

1,333

Crosswalk

How Resilient & Infrastructure-Independent Networks is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 6 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
H04W84/18	Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks	Self-organising, ad-hoc, mesh and sensor networks	3	3	133,285
H04B13/02	Transmission systems in which the medium consists of the earth or a large mass of water thereon, e.g. earth telegraphy	Communication through the earth or through water	1	1	7,835
H04B11/00	Transmission systems employing ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves	Acoustic communication, including underwater	1	1	11,056
H04B7/22	Scatter propagation systems, e.g. ionospheric, tropospheric or meteor scatter	Scatter-propagation radio links	1	1	2,092

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 Resilient & Infrastructure-Independent Networks: 6 codes on 153,561 documents. The full crosswalk is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.

Code	Title	Under entry	How placed	Documents
H04W84/18	Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks	H04W84/18	In the scheme	113,884
H04W84/20	Leader-follower arrangements	H04W84/18	In the scheme	14,367
H04B11/00	Transmission systems employing ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves	H04B11/00	In the scheme	10,587
H04B13/02	Transmission systems in which the medium consists of the earth or a large mass of water thereon, e.g. earth telegraphy	H04B13/02	In the scheme	7,634
H04W84/22	Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks with access to wired networks	H04W84/18	In the scheme	5,034
H04B7/22	Scatter propagation systems, e.g. ionospheric, tropospheric or meteor scatter	H04B7/22	In the scheme	2,055

Match: Direct

The capability is itself a technology or a kind of physical system, and the classification names it. Tactical and undersea-cable communication have no entries of their own, so this is a narrow proxy. The crosswalk is a first pass that nobody has reviewed.

Resilient & Infrastructure-Independent Networks

Year by year

Volume

Share by country

Country leaderboard

Ten largest

Applicants

Global

United States

China

Japan

South Korea

Germany

Similar capabilities

Crosswalk

Other capabilities in Connectivity, Cyber & Trust Technologies