Mention AI model leaders and these names typically come to mind: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. With their cutting-edge frontier models, surely they’re companies that have applied for the highest number of AI patents, right?
Not quite. It turns out that the most prolific applicant for AI patents is a South Korean giant: Samsung. That’s according to the latest report released today by IFI Claims Patent Services, a provider of global patent data and analytics.
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Samsung led globally in 2025 with 2,162 applications. It also led in the U.S., with 682 applications.
Second was China’s Huawei globally, with 1,822, and third was Google, at 1,672. In the U.S., Google came in second, at 671, and Microsoft was third, at 585.
How did the leading frontier AI model companies fare?
OpenAI filed 35 globally and 27 in the U.S. last year. Anthropic filed eight and seven, respectively. But Elon Musk’s xAI had no filings in 2025, according to the patent service.
“This is not a shock. Musk has long preferred open source and trade secrets over patents, which he sees as a tool to suppress progress,” according to the IFI report. “‘Patents are for the weak,’ he famously told (former NBC talk show host) Jay Leno a few years ago. … ‘They’re used like landmines in warfare,’ he went on. ‘They don’t actually help advance things; they just stop others from following you.'”
Breaking out the gen AI applicant rankings globally and in the U.S., Google comes out ahead – which may not come as a big surprise.
What may surprise you is who tops the charts in agentic AI applications in the U.S. and the world: Nvidia. Note that Samsung is near the bottom of this leaders’ list in the U.S. and globally.
Some other names that might come as a surprise in the rankings: Adobe, Intuit, the State Grid Corp. of China, Robert Bosch GmbH, and a number of Chinese universities – Zhejiang University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Tsinghua University and Beihang University.
AI patent grants hit milestone
Overall, global AI patent applications in 2025 were down 8.3% to 173,990 from the previous year. However, global AI patent grants soared past 100,000 for the first time: 107,279. Meanwhile, both generative AI and agentic AI applications and grants continue to rise.
U.S. trends followed a similar trajectory.
Top technology categories in the gen AI and agentic AI patents:
The largest patent category is “Computing arrangements based on biological models,” which covers AI systems inspired by the way biological neural networks process information, including many deep learning techniques that underpin today’s gen AI and agentic AI systems.
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