Patents
Technology classes
In 2022, Dealroom added patent data to the platform. Combined with venture capital flows, startup formation and other innovation data, patents add an entirely new dimension to innovation mapping, with a different set of industry players and longer time horizons.
This opens up new possibilities for benchmarking ecosystems and discovering promising tech companies.
By size
Below are the top categories by the number of patents filed in 2021 per superclass and subclass.
By growth
Emerging classes become visible by looking at the acceleration of annual new patent development.
Corporates & startups
Patent data also allows us to compare companies by their strength in individual technologies. Below are some examples of that. These are typically dominated by big corporates (but also companies like Snap in AR/VR).
While most startups don’t apply for patents, some do, especially Deep Tech startups. On the Dealroom platform, you can search for companies founded since 2020 with Semiconductor patents, sorted by the Dealroom Signal, to name one example.
By location
Global distribution
We have excluded China-only patents. Still, Asia leads. Tokyo especially stands out.
Top cities by patents
Top cities by superclasses
The below data is shown per capita to allow us to discover smaller hubs with strong specialization.
Top cities by subclasses
Beijing and Shanghai top the list for many technologies. London is notably a global leader in immunogenetics.
Universities
Patent data also allows us to compare universities by the rate of patent development. The rankings seem to correlate with the Times Higher Education and rankings by the number of university spinouts, which suggests there is informational value to be extracted.
Methodology
This data is provided in partnership with Cipher.ai, which has developed a unique taxonomy which aims to provide consistency to patented technologies owned by all companies globally. This taxonomy is split into nine superclasses and 112 subclasses.
China-only patents are excluded from global comparison statistics.