Strategic Infrastructure

Supply Chain & Ecosystem

Supply chain and ecosystem covers the shared industrial fabric that connects producers, including industrial parks, special economic zones, supplier clusters and manufacturing-oriented warehousing. One of the capabilities of Advanced Manufacturing.

International families: 20k2015 to 2024
Leading country: Japan1.4× the next
All families: 95khome 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

Japan

United States

China

Germany

South Korea

Norway

Taiwan

United Kingdom

France

Switzerland

5,464

3,990

2,382

2,036

1,428

516

407

397

361

314


1	Japan	5,464	27.6%	1.5×	11,506
2	United States	3,990	20.2%	1.0×	8,154
3	China	2,382	12.1%	2.6×	57,230
4	Germany	2,036	10.3%	1.6×	3,051
5	South Korea	1,428	7.2%	3.1×	8,931
6	Norway	516	2.6%	2.7×	543
7	Taiwan	407	2.1%	1.5×	849
8	United Kingdom	397	2.0%	2.4×	539
9	France	361	1.8%	1.3×	545
10	Switzerland	314	1.6%	1.1×	361
11	Italy	298	1.5%	1.4×	480
12	Canada	273	1.4%	1.1×	379
13	Austria	217	1.1%	1.1×	240
14	India	199	1.0%	1.9×	288
15	Australia	151	0.8%	0.9×	198
16	Netherlands	146	0.7%	1.0×	167
17	Israel	133	0.7%	1.1×	176
18	Sweden	119	0.6%	0.8×	142
19	Singapore	104	0.5%	1.0×	118
20	Finland	88	0.4%	1.3×	108
21	Türkiye	87	0.4%	3.1×	140
22	Belgium	74	0.4%	2.7×	114
23	Spain	71	0.4%	1.1×	88
24	Ireland	67	0.3%	0.9×	92
25	Denmark	48	0.2%	1.1×	49
26	Poland	32	0.2%	1.9×	89
27	Brazil	29	0.1%	0.5×	77
28	Cayman Islands	28	0.1%	0.0×	29
29	Hong Kong	27	0.1%	0.6×	36
30	Russia	21	0.1%	1.3×	75
31	Saudi Arabia	19	0.1%	2.8×	33
32	New Zealand	15	0.1%	0.7×	20
33	Czechia	14	0.1%	1.3×	24
34	Malaysia	13	0.1%	3.3×	21
35	South Africa	12	0.1%	1.4×	13
36	Luxembourg	12	0.1%	0.7×	15
37	Hungary	12	0.1%	2.0×	21
38	Portugal	11	0.1%	1.2×	16
39	Liechtenstein	7	0.0%	–	9
40	Mexico	5	0.0%	0.7×	14

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 Supply Chain & Ecosystem. Names are as held in the source and are not consolidated across subsidiaries.

Global

19,765 international families

DAIFUKU KK · Japan

AUTOSTORE TECH AS · Norway

HITACHI LTD · Japan

WALMART APOLLO LLC · United States

MURATA MACHINERY LTD · Japan

COUPANG CORP · South Korea

532

491

430

356

335

314

Japan

5,464 international families

DAIFUKU KK

HITACHI LTD

MURATA MACHINERY LTD

TOYOTA MOTOR CORP

TOYOTA MOTOR CO LTD

PANASONIC IP MAN CO LTD

523

422

334

307

295

274

United States

3,990 international families

WALMART APOLLO LLC

WAL MART STORES INC

AMAZON TECH INC

SYMBOTIC LLC

BOEING CO

FORD GLOBAL TECH LLC

355

166

China

2,382 international families

HAI ROBOTICS CO LTD

BEIJING GEEKPLUS TECH CO LTD

SHENZHEN HAIROU INNOVATION TECH CO LTD

BEIJING JINGDONG QIANSHI TECH CO LTD

BEIJING JINGDONG CENTURY TRADING CO LTD

BEIJING JINGDONG SHANGKE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CO LTD

221

192

177

122

Germany

2,036 international families

SIEMENS AG

BASF SE

BOSCH GMBH ROBERT

DEMATIC GMBH

JUNGHEINRICH AG

GEBHARDT FOERDERTECH

256

173

South Korea

United States

Japan

China

South Korea

Germany

8,689

3,604

3,322

2,540

750

Crosswalk

How Supply Chain & Ecosystem is matched to the patent classifications. The entries below were chosen for it; each stands for itself and everything beneath it in the scheme, 52 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
G06Q10/087	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders	Inventory, procurement and order-filling systems	15	2	199,710
B65G1/00	Storing articles, individually or in orderly arrangement, in warehouses or magazines	Warehouse storage and automated retrieval systems	36	16	267,502
G06Q50/04	Manufacturing	Business systems specially adapted for manufacturing	1	1	86,325

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 Supply Chain & Ecosystem: 52 codes on 488,317 documents. The full crosswalk is in the cpc-to-capability.csv download.

Code	Title	Under entry	How placed	Documents
G06Q10/087	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	98,212
G06Q50/04	Manufacturing	G06Q50/04	In the scheme	67,549
G06Q10/0877	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders by inventory control or reporting using inventory tracking or counting	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	28,398
B65G1/04	Storage devices mechanical	B65G1/00	In the scheme	26,446
B65G1/0492	Storage devices mechanical with cars adapted to travel in storage aisles	B65G1/00	In the scheme	19,725
G06Q10/0875	Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	18,398
B65G1/1373	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed for fulfilling orders in warehouses	B65G1/00	In the scheme	17,603
B65G1/137	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed	B65G1/00	In the scheme	13,299
B65G1/1378	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed for fulfilling orders in warehouses the orders being assembled on fixed commissioning areas remote from the storage areas	B65G1/00	In the scheme	11,796
B65G1/0464	Storage devices mechanical with access from above	B65G1/00	In the scheme	11,127
G06Q10/08726	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders using inventory planning for replenishment processing, procedures, or recommendations using forecasting or optimisation	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	11,032
B65G1/0407	Storage devices mechanical using stacker cranes	B65G1/00	In the scheme	10,499
B65G1/065	Storage devices mechanical with means for presenting articles for removal at predetermined position or level with self propelled cars	B65G1/00	In the scheme	9,805
B65G1/02	Storage devices	B65G1/00	In the scheme	8,603
B65G1/0485	Check-in, check-out devices	B65G1/00	In the scheme	7,966
B65G1/1371	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed with data records	B65G1/00	In the scheme	7,328
B65G1/0478	Storage devices mechanical for matrix-arrangements	B65G1/00	In the scheme	7,291
B65G1/06	Storage devices mechanical with means for presenting articles for removal at predetermined position or level	B65G1/00	In the scheme	7,218
G06Q10/08741	Inventory fulfillment by picking of items from inventory for fulfillment	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	6,861
B65G1/0457	Storage devices mechanical with suspended load carriers	B65G1/00	In the scheme	6,327
B65G1/1375	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed for fulfilling orders in warehouses the orders being assembled on a commissioning stacker-crane or truck	B65G1/00	In the scheme	5,737
G06Q10/08772	Inventory counting methods	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	5,589
B65G1/0435	Storage devices mechanical using stacker cranes with pulling or pushing means on either stacking crane or stacking area	B65G1/00	In the scheme	5,578
G06Q10/0874	Inventory fulfillment	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	5,367
G06Q10/08744	Inventory fulfillment by distributed inventory management	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	5,095
G06Q10/08724	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders using inventory planning by shelf level inventory management, e.g. planograms	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	4,846
G06Q10/0872	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders using inventory planning	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	4,505
B65G1/00	Storing articles, individually or in orderly arrangement, in warehouses or magazines	B65G1/00	In the scheme	4,469
B65G1/10	Storage devices mechanical with relatively movable racks to facilitate insertion or removal of articles	B65G1/00	In the scheme	4,140
B65G1/0421	Storage devices mechanical using stacker cranes with control for stacker crane operations	B65G1/00	In the scheme	4,100
B65G1/08	Storage devices mechanical with means for presenting articles for removal at predetermined position or level the articles being fed by gravity	B65G1/00	In the scheme	3,552
B65G1/0414	Storage devices mechanical using stacker cranes provided with satellite cars adapted to travel in storage racks	B65G1/00	In the scheme	3,528
G06Q10/08776	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders by inventory control or reporting using inventory tracking or counting by management of storage life of perishable or hazardous products	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	3,304
B65G1/1376	Storage devices mechanical with arrangements or automatic control means for selecting which articles are to be removed for fulfilling orders in warehouses the orders being assembled on a commissioning conveyor	B65G1/00	In the scheme	3,296
B65G1/14	Stack holders or separators	B65G1/00	In the scheme	3,197
B65G1/127	Storage devices mechanical with separate article supports or holders movable in a closed circuit to facilitate insertion or removal of articles the articles being books, documents, forms or the like the circuit being confined in a vertical plane	B65G1/00	In the scheme	3,089
G06Q10/08778	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders by inventory control or reporting using inventory tracking or counting for managing mis-shipments, lost items or stolen goods	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	2,831
G06Q10/08743	Inventory fulfillment by picking of items from inventory for fulfillment using optimisation of routes	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	2,775
B65G1/0471	Storage devices mechanical with access from beneath	B65G1/00	In the scheme	2,090
B65G1/0442	Storage devices mechanical for elongated articles	B65G1/00	In the scheme	2,077
B65G1/133	Storage devices mechanical with separate article supports or holders movable in a closed circuit to facilitate insertion or removal of articles the articles being books, documents, forms or the like the circuit being confined in a horizontal plane	B65G1/00	In the scheme	2,039
B65G1/026	Racks equipped with a displaceable load carrying surface to facilitate loading or unloading	B65G1/00	In the scheme	1,930
B65G1/045	Storage devices mechanical in a circular arrangement, e.g. towers	B65G1/00	In the scheme	1,665
G06Q10/08774	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders by inventory control or reporting using inventory tracking or counting using consumer inventory reporting	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	1,418
B65G1/12	Storage devices mechanical with separate article supports or holders movable in a closed circuit to facilitate insertion or removal of articles the articles being books, documents, forms or the like	B65G1/00	In the scheme	1,415
B65G1/023	Arrangements of article supporting rollers on racks	B65G1/00	In the scheme	1,108
G06Q10/08728	Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders using inventory planning of returned inventory	G06Q10/087	In the scheme	1,079
B65G1/07	Storage devices mechanical with means for presenting articles for removal at predetermined position or level the upper article of a pile being always presented at the same predetermined level	B65G1/00	In the scheme	1,078
B65G1/0428	Transfer means for the stacker crane between the alleys	B65G1/00	In the scheme	948
B65G1/16	Special arrangements of articles in storage spaces	B65G1/00	In the scheme	815
B65G1/20	Articles arranged in layers with spaces between articles	B65G1/00	In the scheme	138
B65G1/18	Articles inclined so as to be mutually self-supporting	B65G1/00	In the scheme	36

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. Industrial parks, zones and supplier clusters have no entry; only warehousing and supply-management tools can be matched. The crosswalk is a first pass that nobody has reviewed.

Supply Chain & Ecosystem

Year by year

Volume

Share by country

Country leaderboard

Ten largest

Applicants

Global

Japan

United States

China

Germany

South Korea

Similar capabilities

Crosswalk

Other capabilities in Advanced Manufacturing