China Dominates Global Generative AI Patent Filings

Chinese investors hold the largest number of patents related to generative AI, significantly surpassing the U.S., according to a new report.

Findings published by World Intellectual Property (WIPO), the United Nation’s dedicated IP agency, showed that 54,000 patents covering innovations related to generative AI have been filed between 2014-2023

China accounted for more than 38,000 of those patents, some six times more than the U.S. with 6,276 filings.

Tencent was the top generative AI patent filer, responsible for 2,074, followed by Ping An Insurance (1,564) and Baidu (1,234).

Chinese firms accounted for six of the top 10 generative AI patent filers. IBM is the only non-Chinese entity in the top five, with 601 applications.

Also featured in the top 10 were Alibaba Group (571), Samsung Electronics (468), Alphabet (443), ByteDance (418) and Microsoft (377).

The findings highlight that China is not showing signs of slowing in its pursuit of intellectual property. In 2020, China overtook the U.S. to become the top source of international patent applications and surpassed the U.S. for scientific research in 2022.

The country with the third highest generative AI patent filings was the Republic of Korea with 4,155, followed by Japan (3,409) and India (1,350).

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Fifth-placed India saw the highest average annual growth rate among the top five leaders, at 56%. 

WIPO found that 25% of all generative AI-related patent filings were made in the last year alone, amid the rising interest in the technology in the wake of ChatGPT.

Generative AI patents have increased eightfold since 2017, with WIPO citing the introduction of transformer architectures that power language models that same year.

Image and video-related innovations dominated the generative AI filings, accounting for some 17,996 inventions, followed by text (13,494 inventions) and audio (13,480 inventions).

Innovations related to gene and protein-based data were the fastest-growing innovation area, accounting for 78% average annual growth over the past five years.

WIPO figures show generative AI patents span a variety of industries, including life sciences (5,346 inventions), document management and publishing (4,976 inventions) and more than 2,000 inventions in each of business solutions, industries and manufacturing, transportation, security and telecommunications.

Despite the increased interest, generative AI-related patents only account for 6% of all AI-related patents globally.

In addition to patents, WIPO found more than 75,000 scientific publications related to generative AI were published between 2014 and 2023, with more than 45% of those filed in the past year.

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“Generative AI has emerged as a game-changing technology with the potential to transform the way we work, live and play,” said WIPO director general Daren Tang.