Patent Insight 11: Issued Patents Hit New Highs in 2024
In the fast-changing world of intellectual property, staying ahead requires more than legal expertise—it demands data-driven insights into the trends that are shaping patent prosecution. Over the past five years, significant shifts have been influenced by technological advancements, regulatory changes, and global market dynamics. At Patexia, we’ve tracked these trends, arming IP professionals with data to navigate uncertainty.
This year’s Patent Intelligence Report offers a comprehensive analysis of prosecution trends, supported by robust data and in-depth research. From filing activity and prosecution timelines to examiner behavior and attorney and law firm performance, our report provides actionable intelligence for attorneys, corporations, and IP stakeholders.
This article highlights a key trend: the rise in issued patents during 2024, while offering a preview of the insights featured in this year’s report.
The number of patents issued often serves as an indicator of technological growth and market dynamics, with increases signaling active innovation, and declines potentially reflecting shifts in economic conditions, business strategies, or regulatory changes. As seen above, the number of patents issued annually has seen fluctuations from 2020 to 2024. Starting strong in 2020 with 391,353 issued patents, the numbers showed a decline over the next three years, reaching a low of 348,114 in 2023. This downward trend cannot be pinpointed to a single cause, but it may reflect the lingering economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and shifts in R&D investments. Additionally, continuous fluctuations in both foreign and domestic patent filings have also played a role in influencing these numbers.
The increase in issued patents in 2024 marks a significant turning point, one that we anticipated after the first half of the previous year. However, it seems that the growth has slowed down in the second half of 2024. To fully understand this trend, our upcoming Patent Intelligence 2025 report will provide an in-depth analysis, beginning with a closer look at high-tech and biotech activity, which are often key drivers of patent filings. We will also examine fluctuations between foreign and domestic patents and shifts in major players' filings, exploring how these trends vary across cities and states where inventors are located, and identify growing and declining countries in the global patent landscape.
Additionally, we will move beyond raw filing numbers and evaluate various metrics such as activity levels, success rates in patent issuance, claim quality, examination efficiency, and prosecution cost-effectiveness. By analyzing these factors, we will rank the top companies, law firms, patent attorneys, and agents based on both their activity and performance. The Top 2,000 will be featured in the report, along with a comprehensive Excel file containing all their statistics. Furthermore, we will award exclusive badges to the top 250 performers in the high-tech, biotech, and overall categories. This thorough analysis will enable stakeholders to optimize IP strategies, benchmark performance, and capitalize on emerging opportunities in a rapidly evolving innovation landscape.