Patent issuance trends offer valuable insight into the pace of innovation, the workload at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the overall health of the intellectual property ecosystem. Fluctuations in annual and quarterly grant numbers can signal shifts in R&D investment, filing strategies, and examination efficiency. For companies, law firms, and investors, these trends help anticipate competitive activity and assess the strength of the innovation pipeline. Many of these patterns were explored in depth in Patexia’s Patent Intelligence Report 2025, released in March and available for download, which includes rankings and performance analysis of the most active U.S. patent prosecution firms and attorneys.

U.S. patent issuance in the first half of 2025 reached 180,058 grants, marking a 3.7% decrease compared to the 186,925 patents granted during the same period in 2024. This slowdown comes after a rebound in 2024, when total yearly grants climbed to 373,516, reversing a multi-year decline from the 2020 peak. While year-over-year numbers were lower, quarterly data reveals a modest gain from Q1 (87,499 patents) to Q2 (91,953 patents), signaling a possible upward momentum heading into the second half of the year.

As seen above, from 2020 through 2023, U.S. patent grants saw a gradual contraction, dropping from 391,353 in 2020 to 348,114 in 2023. The decline was briefly interrupted in 2024, which recorded 373,516 patents, suggesting improved examination throughput and possibly increased applicant activity. However, the H1 2025 figures suggest that growth may be stabilizing rather than accelerating, with a pace slightly below last year’s.

The year opened with Q1 2025 producing 87,499 grants, followed by Q2’s total of 91,953, a 5.1% quarter-over-quarter increase. This contrasts with last year, when Q2 output slightly trailed Q1, making the 2025 lift more notable. While the gain may partly reflect examination cycles and post-holiday workflow recovery at the USPTO, whether this momentum will carry into Q3 will be a key factor in determining if 2025 can close the gap with 2024 or continue the mild contraction.

Stay tuned, in our upcoming Patexia Patent Insights articles, we’ll continue to track patent issuance and other prosecution trends. For a deeper dive into firm and attorney rankings, methodology, and historical performance, the Patent Prosecution Intelligence Report 2025 is available now for download.