Cisco has a total of 34991 patents globally, out of which 23661 have been granted. Of these 34991 patents, more than 69% patents are active. United States of America is where Cisco has filed the maximum number of patents, followed by Europe and China and it also seems reasonable as the biggest market for Cisco is USA & China. Parallelly, USA seems to be the main focused R&D center and is also the origin country of Cisco.
Cisco was founded in 1984 by Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack. The company doing business as a conglomerate. The Company offers a wide range of products in networking hardware, software and telecommunications equipment, etc. As of December 2021, Cisco has a market cap of $240.48 Billion.
Do read about some of the most popular patents of Cisco which have been covered by us in this article and also you can find Cisco patents information, the worldwide patent filing activity and its patent filing trend over the years, and many other stats over Cisco patent portfolio.
How many patents does Cisco have?
Cisco has a total of 34991 patents globally. These patents belong to 15783 unique patent families. Out of 34991 patents, 24320 patents are active.
How many Cisco patents are Alive/Dead?
Worldwide Patents
Patent Families
How Many Patents did Cisco File Every Year?
Are you wondering why there is a drop in patent filing for the last two years? It is because a patent application can take up to 18 months to get published. Certainly, it doesn’t suggest a decrease in the patent filing.
| Year of Patents Filing or Grant | Cisco Applications Filed | Cisco Patents Granted |
| 2011 | 1476 | 1555 |
| 2012 | 1493 | 1597 |
| 2013 | 1679 | 1508 |
| 2014 | 1907 | 1588 |
| 2015 | 1861 | 1422 |
| 2016 | 1576 | 1534 |
| 2017 | 1474 | 1547 |
| 2018 | 1465 | 1536 |
| 2019 | 1582 | 1782 |
| 2020 | 1044 | 1585 |
| 2021 | 293 | 1206 |
How Many Patents did Cisco File in Different Countries?
Countries in which Cisco Filed Patents
| Country | Patents |
| United States Of America | 20228 |
| Europe | 3721 |
| China | 2378 |
| Canada | 747 |
| India | 640 |
| Australia | 542 |
| Japan | 416 |
| Germany | 355 |
| Austria | 323 |
| United Kingdom | 317 |
| Korea (South) | 315 |
| Israel | 233 |
| Norway | 117 |
| Spain | 71 |
| Mexico | 52 |
| Singapore | 49 |
| Hong Kong (S.A.R.) | 46 |
| Taiwan | 42 |
| Brazil | 35 |
| Denmark | 16 |
| Russian Federation | 13 |
| Portugal | 11 |
| New Zealand | 10 |
| Poland | 8 |
| France | 6 |
| Argentina | 4 |
| Peru | 4 |
| Turkey | 4 |
| South Africa | 3 |
| Cyprus | 2 |
| Italy | 2 |
| Malaysia | 2 |
| Ecuador | 1 |
| Colombia | 1 |
| Egypt | 1 |
| Slovenia | 1 |
| Georgia | 1 |
| Finland | 1 |
| Thailand | 1 |
Where are Research Centers of Cisco Patents Located?
10 Best Cisco Patents
US6763501B1 is the most popular patent in the Cisco portfolio. It has received 1714 citations so far from companies like Salesforce, Optimization Strategies and PTC Inc.
Below is the list of 10 most cited patents of Cisco:
| Publication Number | Citation Count |
| US6763501B1 | 1774 |
| US6976090B2 | 891 |
| US20080082662A1 | 713 |
| US7603483B2 | 523 |
| US20020022483A1 | 477 |
| US8027354B1 | 461 |
| US6981029B1 | 432 |
| US7424268B2 | 430 |
| US7228359B1 | 425 |
| US6831893B1 | 420 |
Which Companies are using Cisco Patents to Advance their Research?
If patents or patents from a particular technology area of a company receive a lot of citations, it implies that the technology is being followed and incrementally innovated by the citing companies. It also indicates that citing companies are working on similar and closely related technologies.
The top citing companies in the Cisco patent portfolio are IBM, Microsoft and Huawei.
List of the top forward citing Companies –
| Company | Number of Patents |
| IBM | 1689 |
| Microsoft | 1026 |
| Huawei | 857 |
| Ericsson | 852 |
| Qualcomm | 780 |
| Samsung | 720 |
| Hewlett Packard | 651 |
| Intel | 572 |
| At&T | 526 |
| Juniper Networks | 505 |
Count of 102 and 103 Type Rejections based on Cisco Patents
Top Cisco Patents used in Rejecting Most Patent Applications
| Patent Number | Count of Rejected Applications |
| US8064909B2 | 86 |
| US8831014B2 | 79 |
| US20080082662A1 | 53 |
| US20180027006A1 | 50 |
| US7849502B1 | 46 |
| US8856860B2 | 40 |
| US8478849B2 | 40 |
| US20090300673A1 | 40 |
| US7847815B2 | 39 |
| US8175539B2 | 39 |
| US6976090B2 | 39 |
| US7567822B2 | 38 |
| US7139811B2 | 36 |
| US7350077B2 | 35 |
| US8102781B2 | 33 |
What Percentage of Cisco US Patent Applications were Granted?
Cisco (Excluding its subsidiaries) has filed 19162 patent applications at USPTO so far (Excluding Design and PCT applications). Out of these 16072 have been granted leading to a grant rate of 90.99%.
Below are the key stats of the Cisco patent prosecution at the USPTO.
Which Law Firms Filed Most US Patents for Cisco?
| Law Firm | Total Applications | Success Rate |
| Edell Shapiro & Finnan | 3977 | 89.47% |
| Cisco Technology | 4435 | 93.51% |
| Merchant & Gould | 1826 | 84.54% |
| Behmke Innovation Group | 1682 | 92.06% |
| Patterson & Sheridan | 1559 | 90.79% |
| Baker Botts | 1335 | 90.34% |
| Scientific Atlanta | 515 | 91.87% |
| Hickman Becker Bingham Ledesma | 482 | 96.65% |
| Law Office Of Cindy Kaplan | 454 | 88.11% |
| Campbell Stephenson | 385 | 99.19% |
Cisco has created a multi-faceted and structured innovation strategy to ensure that the entrepreneurial spirit is maintained while maintaining accountability. Cisco’s strategy is organised around five pillars. Five pillars of Cisco’s strategy are: build, buy, partner, invest, and co-develop.
Cisco spends $6.3 billion on research and development annually. This level of R&D investment demonstrates Cisco’s commitment to maintaining market leadership and developing new and innovative technologies.
Cisco provides solutions based on the core principles of full-stack observability, cloud-native technology, and end-to-end application security to enable enterprises offer improved application experiences. Businesses can encourage simplicity, boost IT agility, and achieve new levels of business resiliency with Cisco products. Because applications are at the heart of today’s businesses, Cisco’s full-stack observability and network automation solutions help businesses optimise their resources and environments while also enabling them to build a secure, agile network that can be managed quickly to provide the best application experiences for their customers.
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON
What are Cisco‘s key innovation segments?
What Technologies are Covered by Cisco?
The chart below distributes patents filed by Cisco in different countries on the basis of the technology protected in patents. It also represents the markets where Cisco thinks it’s important to protect particular technology inventions
R&D Focus: How Cisco search focus changed over the years?
Interested in knowing about the areas of innovation that are being protected by Cisco?
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON