Number of Generative AI Patents: SoftBank Takes the Top Spot, Chinese Enterprises Rank High
Masayoshi Son, Chairman and President of SoftBank Group, delivering a speech (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on the morning of July 14)
According to the report from the World Intellectual Property Organization, in terms of the number of published generative AI-related patents between 2014 and 2025, SoftBank Group ranks first in the world with 2985 patents. Among the top 10 enterprises, 6 are Chinese enterprises or institutions...
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released a report on generative artificial intelligence (AI) patents on July 14. Judging from the number of related patents published from 2014 to 2025, SoftBank Group (SBG) ranks first globally with 2985 patents.
Among the top 10 enterprises, 6 are Chinese enterprises or institutions including Tencent Holdings and Baidu. Masayoshi Son, Chairman and President of SoftBank Group, actively invests in AI-related fields and is also a major shareholder of U.S.-based OpenAI. The fact that SoftBank Group itself has filed a large number of patents has come to light.
The number of global generative AI-related patents published from 2024 to 2025 exceeded 56,000, and the figure in the latest two years has surpassed the total cumulative number from 2014 to 2023. Among them, most of SoftBank Group's patents are concentrated in 2024 and 2025.
The WIPO report pointed out regarding SoftBank Group that the supporting factor is a "multi-faceted AI infrastructure and investment strategy", including the "Stargate Project" that invests huge sums of capital in AI in cooperation with partners such as OpenAI, and the large language model (LLM) "Sarashina" that its communication subsidiary SoftBank is developing.
Since 2023, SoftBank Group has held a "Generative AI Application Competition" for all employees under the group. As of January 2026, more than 260,000 ideas have been collected, and patent applications have been submitted for outstanding solutions.
In 2025, SoftBank Group required all employees to use AI, for example, requiring each person to develop 100 "AI agents" that can complete work tasks autonomously.
SoftBank, a subsidiary of the group, is also engaged in the "AI-RAN" business that integrates mobile communication base stations with AI infrastructure, as well as call center services based on AI agents.
In the WIPO report, enterprises such as U.S.-based OpenAI which developed "ChatGPT" did not enter the top ranking. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, ranks 7th with 1083 patents, and Microsoft which launched "Copilot" ranks 9th with 865 patents.
IBM ranks 10th with 821 patents. U.S. chip giant NVIDIA, Japan's NTT and Sony Group follow closely behind.
The total number of OpenAI's published patents worldwide is only 35. The report analyzes that the company "values trade secrets and application speed more (than patents)".
The report points out that "generative AI-related patents are developing at an unprecedented speed, and the competition landscape in the next few years will depend on strategic decisions such as where to apply for patents and what to protect".
This article is from the WeChat official account "Nikkei Chinese Net" (ID: rijingzhongwenwang), authors are Mutou Tomoko and Yagi Yusuke, 36Kr is authorized to distribute this content.