How many patents are there depends on what you count. The most useful answer is approximately 20 million patents in force worldwide in 2024, while annual applications, grants, pending applications, and historical patent numbers produce different totals.
Key Takeaways
- Approximately 20 million patents were in force worldwide in 2024, based on the latest WIPO reporting.
- Inventors filed a record 3.7 million patent applications worldwide in 2024, up 4.9% from 2023.
- Patent offices granted approximately 2.1 million patents worldwide during 2024.
- China's patent office received 1.8 million applications in 2024, while the USPTO received 603,194.
- The USPTO has issued more than 12 million numbered patents, but that historical total is not the number currently enforceable.
- You can search published U.S. patents free by number, owner, inventor, claims, or keywords through USPTO tools.
How Many Patents Are There in the World?
Approximately 20 million patents were in force worldwide in 2024. That rounded figure, drawn from the World Intellectual Property Organization's latest worldwide indicators, provides the best answer to how many patents exist as currently maintained legal rights. It does not represent every patent granted throughout history.
WIPO also reported a record 3.7 million patent applications filed worldwide in 2024. Applications increased 4.9% from 2023, producing the fastest annual growth since 2018. Patent offices granted approximately 2.1 million patents during the same reporting year. These three figures cannot be added together because they measure overlapping but different populations.
A patent in force has been granted and remains legally active in a particular jurisdiction. A single invention may produce patents in several countries, with each national or regional right counted separately. Consequently, the worldwide total does not equal the number of unique inventions. Analysts may use patent families to group filings related to the same invention, but family-counting methods also vary.
The worldwide inventory changes continually. Offices grant new patents, owners decline to pay required maintenance or renewal fees, and patents expire or are invalidated. Published applications may also be abandoned before a patent issues. For current figures and country tables, WIPO's World Intellectual Property Indicators provides a consistent international reference.
What Does the Total Number of Patents Mean?
There is no single all-time count of all patents in the world that answers every practical question. Before relying on a number, identify which patent population it covers and the date on which it was measured.
- Patents in force: Granted patents that remain active in the jurisdictions where protection was obtained. This is usually the most relevant count for market-entry and infringement questions.
- Patent applications: Requests for patent protection filed during a period. An application may remain pending, issue as a patent, or be abandoned.
- Patent grants: Patents issued during a stated year. Annual grants are a flow, while patents in force are an accumulated inventory.
- Pending applications: Applications still under examination. Some may not yet be publicly available, depending on publication rules and timing.
- Expired or lapsed patents: Former patent rights that are no longer in force. Their documents may remain useful as technical disclosures and prior art.
- Patent families: Related applications filed in different jurisdictions for the same or closely related invention. Family totals are lower than jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction document totals.
Patent numbers also do not show how broad, valuable, or enforceable a portfolio is. One patent may contain claims central to a commercial product, while a large portfolio may contain narrow claims, expired rights, or rights limited to markets where the company does not operate. For comparisons of portfolio size, see how analysts evaluate the companies with the most patents.
2024 Patent Applications, Grants, and Active Patents
The following comparison uses 2024 as the common reporting year and rounds worldwide totals where appropriate. It shows why answers to "how many patents are there total" can differ by millions even when each source is discussing valid patent statistics.
| Measure | 2024 worldwide figure | What the figure tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Patent applications filed | 3.7 million | New requests for patent protection filed during the year |
| Patents granted | Approximately 2.1 million | Applications that became granted rights during the year |
| Patents in force | Approximately 20 million | Granted patents still active at the reporting date |
The 3.7 million applications included 2.7 million resident filings and 1 million nonresident filings. Resident filings accounted for 72.6% of the total. A resident filing generally means an applicant filed in the applicant's home jurisdiction, while a nonresident filing came from an applicant based elsewhere.
Between 2010 and 2024, worldwide application volume rose from just under 2 million to 3.7 million. This does not mean that every application became a patent. Patent offices examine applications under their own laws, and outcomes depend on patentability, prosecution decisions, fees, and applicant strategy.
Applications filed through national, regional, and international systems may also overlap. A Patent Cooperation Treaty application provides a unified initial filing route, but it does not create one enforceable worldwide patent. Protection ultimately depends on rights obtained in selected jurisdictions.
Patent Rankings by Country and Patent Office
China's intellectual property office received 1.8 million patent applications in 2024, more than three times the 603,194 applications received by the USPTO. The Japan Patent Office received 306,855, the Korean Intellectual Property Office received 246,245, and the European Patent Office received 199,402. Together, these five offices handled 85.5% of worldwide filings.
| Patent office | Applications received in 2024 |
|---|---|
| China | Approximately 1.8 million |
| United States | 603,194 |
| Japan | 306,855 |
| Republic of Korea | 246,245 |
| European Patent Office | 199,402 |
Patent office, applicant origin, and place of enforceable protection are different measures. Office data count applications received by a patent office. Origin data generally classify filings according to the residence of the first named applicant. Jurisdiction data concern where a granted patent has legal effect. A U.S. company filing in Japan contributes to Japan's office total but may remain part of the United States' origin total.
Asia received approximately 2.6 million applications in 2024, equal to 70.1% of worldwide filings. That share reflects both domestic activity and applications from foreign owners. Rankings per capita may look different from rankings based on raw application volume because population size and economic structure affect the result.
Sector concentration also matters. Semiconductor, telecommunications, automotive, pharmaceutical, and computing portfolios can contain thousands of related rights. Readers comparing technical fields can review broader patent trends by industry and the specialized role of semiconductor patents.
How Many U.S. Patents Are There, and How Can You Search Them?
The USPTO has issued more than 12 million numbered patents since the United States began its modern patent-numbering system. U.S. Patent No. 12,000,000 issued on June 4, 2024. That milestone is a historical issuance count, not the number of active U.S. patents. WIPO's measure places the U.S. inventory of patents in force at roughly 3.5 million in recent reporting.
The difference exists because older patents expire, lapse, or cease to be enforceable for other reasons. Number sequences may also include rights with different legal histories. A high patent number therefore does not tell you how many earlier patents remain active or whether the numbered patent is enforceable today.
You can use the USPTO's Patent Public Search to search issued patents and published applications free. Search fields include patent or publication number, inventor, applicant, assignee, title, abstract, claims, classification, and keywords. Number searches work best when you identify whether you have a patent number, application publication number, or application number because they use different formats.
Search results are only a starting point. Ownership records may change through assignments, and a document's face does not always establish current ownership or legal status. You may also need to review related applications, continuations, foreign family members, maintenance information, and the wording of individual claims.
If a proposed product may overlap active patents, or you need to determine if your invention is protectable, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. A patent attorney can define the search scope, review relevant claims and jurisdictions, assess infringement and patentability risks, and develop a filing or clearance strategy. Responses typically arrive within a day, helping you move from a broad database search to advice tailored to the product and markets involved.
Why Industry and Company Patent Counts Require Caution
Company and technology counts are harder to verify than worldwide office statistics. A search for an Illumina active patents count for 2025, the Illumina number of active patents in 2025, or the ANTA number of patents may produce different answers depending on the database and methodology. No responsible static count should be presented without defining the owner names, subsidiaries, jurisdictions, patent families, document types, and legal-status date included.
Company ownership can appear under parent companies, acquired businesses, former names, and subsidiaries. Some records identify the original applicant rather than the current assignee. One invention may also generate continuations, divisionals, reissues, and foreign counterparts. Counting every document produces a different result from counting patent families or active granted patents.
The number of blockchain patents worldwide presents the same problem. A database may identify blockchain records through keywords, patent classifications, citation analysis, or a combination of methods. Each approach can include irrelevant documents or omit patents that describe the technology differently. Counts of blockchain patents filed globally also include applications that may never issue, while the number of blockchain patents granted worldwide excludes pending filings.
For defensible key insights or statistics, document the search date, databases, owner-name variations, countries, family rule, legal-status filters, and definitions. Then review the resulting records instead of treating an automated total as conclusive. Industry-specific analysis, such as a review of automotive patent trends, is more useful when it explains those limits.
How Patent Counts Affect Business Decisions
The worldwide patent total shows the scale of available records, but a business rarely needs to review all patents in the world. Patent rights are territorial, and infringement analysis focuses on enforceable claims in countries where a product will be made, used, sold, offered for sale, or imported. A focused search should reflect the product, technical features, markets, competitors, and development timeline.
Patentability and freedom-to-operate searches also answer different questions. A patentability search looks for prior art relevant to whether your invention may qualify for protection. A freedom-to-operate review looks for active claims that could create risk for planned commercial activity. A document can be relevant to one analysis without controlling the other.
Large portfolios may create patent thickets, which are dense groups of overlapping rights around a product or technical standard. Their existence does not automatically prevent market entry. Claim scope, validity, ownership, jurisdiction, expiration, licensing commitments, and design alternatives all affect the practical risk. Companies may respond through licensing, cross-licensing, design changes, acquisitions, challenges, or targeted filings.
Raw patent counts also provide limited information about innovation quality. Portfolio age, geographic coverage, claim breadth, citation patterns, remaining term, and connection to revenue-producing products may matter more. The inventor with the largest document count is not necessarily the owner of the most commercially significant rights. For an individual-focused comparison, see information about inventors with the most patents.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Patents Are There in the World?
There are approximately 20 million patents in force worldwide based on 2024 WIPO reporting. This figure counts active rights by jurisdiction rather than unique inventions, so related patents covering one invention in several countries may appear multiple times. The figure changes as new patents issue and existing rights expire, lapse, or are invalidated.
How Many Patents Are There Total?
There is no authoritative all-time total for every patent ever created. Historical systems, regional rights, national records, patent families, expired rights, and abandoned applications cannot be combined into one stable number without establishing detailed counting rules. For most legal and business purposes, the current patents-in-force total is more useful than a cumulative historical count.
How Many U.S. Patents Are There?
The United States has issued more than 12 million numbered patents, but only a portion remain in force. Patent numbers measure historical issuance under the modern numbering sequence, while active-patent statistics exclude rights that have expired or lapsed. Search the USPTO record for a specific patent's documents, maintenance information, assignments, and related applications.
Who Has U.S. Patent Number 1?
John Ruggles received U.S. Patent No. 1 on July 11, 1836, for a traction-wheel invention under the modern numbering system. Before the Patent Office restarted numbering after the 1836 fire, Samuel Hopkins received the first U.S. patent in 1790 for a potash-making process. These are therefore different answers based on the numbering period used.
What Are the Four Types of Patents?
U.S. law generally recognizes utility, design, and plant patents as the three principal types. Some explanations list reissue patents as a fourth type, but a reissue replaces a defective unexpired patent rather than protecting a separate category of subject matter. A provisional application is not a patent and does not itself create an issued patent right.
How Many Patents Does Elon Musk Have?
No reliable single number should be stated without a defined, current patent-record search. Results may include different people with similar names, applications that never issued, rights assigned to companies, and related filings for the same invention. A defensible count must specify jurisdictions, inventor-name variations, patent families, document types, and whether only active grants are included.
