Elon Musk
CEO Tesla
South Africa
Elon Musk’s portfolio has 23 patents that belong to 8 unique patent families. His patents belong to vehicle design, autonomous vehicles, location-based search, etc.
| Total Patents | 23 |
| Granted Patents | 9 |
| Associated Companies | SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter, The Boring Company, OpenAI, Neuralink |
| Field of Invention | Autonomous Software & Technology |
How many patents does other industry leaders have
| S. No. | Publication Number | Title | First Filing Year | Tech Area |
| 1 | US6148260A | Interactive Network … | 1996 | Location-Specific Searching |
| 2 | US618194B1 | System And Method For Init… | 1997 | Telephone Network |
| 3 | US6108650A | Method And Apparatus … | 1998 | Location-Specific Searching |
| 4 | USD683268S1 | Vehicle | 2012 | Vehicle Design |
| 5 | US20020018236A1 | Bi-Directional… | 1997 | Exchange of Data |
Do read about some of the most popular patents of Elon Musk which have been covered by us in this article and also you can find his patents filing trend over the years, the worldwide coverage and many other stats over Elon Musk patent portfolio.
The data of inventors patents made available here is solely intended for informational purposes. Although we make every effort to maintain the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the provided information, we cannot guarantee that all data is completely free of errors or entirely up-to-date. If you happen to be the Inventor and wish to contribute additional data for your respective portfolio, kindly get in touch with us.
Engineer of SpaceX, as well as an early phase investor, CEO, and Product Architect for Tesla, the founder of The Boring Company, and a co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. He was named CEO of PayPal. As of May 2022, Elon Musk is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $265.4 billion.
How Many Patents did Elon Musk 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 | Elon Musk Applications Filed | Elon Musk Patents Granted |
| 2023 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | 1 | – |
| 2020 | 7 | – |
| 2019 | 1 | – |
| 2015 | – | 1 |
| 2013 | – | 3 |
| 2012 | 4 | – |
| 2001 | 1 | 1 |
| 2000 | – | 2 |
| 1999 | 5 | 1 |
| 1998 | 1 | – |
| 1997 | 1 | – |
| 1996 | 1 | – |
How many Elon Musk patents are Alive/Dead?
Worldwide Patents
How Many Patents did Elon Musk File in Different Countries?
Countries in which Elon Musk Filed Patents
| Country | Patents |
| United States Of America | 11 |
| Australia | 2 |
| Canada | 2 |
| Europe | 2 |
| Korea (South) | 1 |
| China | 1 |
| Singapore | 1 |
| Hong Kong (S.A.R.) | 1 |
What Technologies are covered by Elon Musk’s Patents?
We know that you have waited for a long time to have a look into the analysis of your favourite innovator/inventor – Elon Musk. Let’s dig in!
We have covered about his ventures in details, If you are curious to know more you can read Tesla and SpaceX blog.
Design patents filed by Musk are particularly related to the artistic design of a car and its charging port which we can realize in the cars manufactured by Tesla, Inc.
Patents related to Autonomous Vehicle are related to the driverless controls of a vehicle – summoning a vehicle to a particular location.
Location-specific Search patents describe the design of a system that looked for results in the geographic area nearest to you first, then automatically expanded that area until there were enough results, as a solution, the user did not need to refine their search. Finding a business, café, restaurant, and other entity and is close to you can be realized as the application of this technology.
Patents related to Data Exchange relates generally to the receiving and sending of a copy of a document over a client-server network.
Telephone Network patent basically tells us about “web-based phone calls”, the concept was a little simpler not as complex as we use nowadays as in Skype or Zoom. According to the idea, users might click on a company’s contact information online, and calls would be directed to the company via a call center.
It is interesting to note that, among these patents, there were 4 patents that were filed by Elon Musk in the year 2020. On a closer look, we can see that among these 4 patents, all of them belong to 1 unique family of patent WO2020167613A1 and the coverage of this patent has been in Australia, Canada, and South Korea.
Have you ever wondered about a car coming to pick you up at your location with just one click and at your command from the parking location itself?
We all know that human drivers are frequently required to operate automobiles, and the duties they undertake are frequently difficult and taxing. Although certain vehicles can be controlled remotely, the vehicle’s route is usually limited to a single straight line course in either forward or reverse direction, with restricted steering range and no sophistication in manoeuvring the vehicle along its own path.WO2020167613A1 is here to solve all these problems and is related to driverless controls of an autonomous vehicle which allows summoning a vehicle to a particular location with flexible routing. You can also realize the clear application of this in Tesla’s cars which are capable of parking themselves, summoning and navigating to their owner, and participating in limited self-driving.
The chart below distributes patents filed by Elon Musk in different countries on the basis of the technology protected in patents. It also represents the markets where Elon Musk thinks it’s important to protect particular technology inventions.
R&D Focus: How Elon Musk Research Focus Changed Over the Years?
10 Best Elon Musk Patents
US5944769A is the most popular patent in the Elon Musk’s portfolio. It has received 205 citations so far from companies like Google, Verizon Data Services, and Microsoft.
Below is the list of 10 most cited patents of Elon Musk:
| Publication Number | Citation Count |
| US5944769A | 205 |
| US6148260A | 202 |
| US6185194B1 | 160 |
| US6108650A | 112 |
| USD683268S1 | 13 |
| US20020018236A1 | 13 |
| USD678154S1 | 12 |
| USD724031S1 | 4 |
| US8579635B2 | 3 |
| WO2020167613A1 | 2 |
How many inventions of other companies were rejected due to Elon Musk’s patents?
The statistics below share strategic R&D insights. It tells the companies that were trying to protect inventions similar to Elon Musk’s invention. They couldn’t because Elon Musk had protected those before them.
Examiners at the USPTO referred 5 Elon Musk patents in 57 rejections (35 USC § 102 or 35 USC § 103 types).
The top citing companies in the Elon Musk patent portfolio are Ford, Wilmington Savings Fund Society, and Google.
List of the Companies whose Patents were rejected citing Elon Musk –
| Company | Number of Patent Applications that faced Rejection Citing Elon Musk Patents | Number of Rejections (102 & 103) |
| Ford Global Technologies | 2 | 2 |
| Wilmington Savings Fund Society | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 5 | |
| Microsoft | 1 | 5 |
| Amazon | 1 | 4 |
| Celeritasworks Llc | 1 | 1 |
| Quasar Acquisition Llc | 1 | 5 |
| Robert Bosch | 1 | 6 |
| Telecommunication Systems Inc | 1 | 5 |
| Toyota | 1 | 1 |
Count of 102 and 103 Type Rejections based on Elon Musk Patents
Top Elon Musk Patents used in Rejecting Most Patent Applications
| Patent Number | Count of Rejected Applications |
| US6185194B1 | 5 |
| US6108650A | 4 |
| US11567514B2 | 3 |
| US5944769A | 2 |
| US8579635B2 | 1 |
List of Elon Musk’s Patents –
| Elon Musk Patents | Title |
| US20230176593A1 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| US11567514B2 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| USD724031S1 | Vehicle Charge Inlet |
| US8579635B2 | Funnel Shaped Charge Inlet |
| USD683268S1 | Vehicle |
| USD678154S1 | Vehicle Door |
| EP3924692A1 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| CN113728210A | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| CA3129725A1 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| AU2020221897A1 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| HK40064755A | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| KR1020210121161A | Autonomous And User-Controlled Vehicle Calls To Cross-Reference Targets For Related Applications |
| SG11202108732SA | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| US20020018236A1 | Bi-Directional Facsimile Mechanism Using The Internet |
| US6185194B1 | System And Method For Initiating A Telephone Call Utilizing Internet Initiation |
| US6148260A | Interactive Network Directory Service With Integrated Maps And Directions |
| US6108650A | Method And Apparatus For An Accelerated Radius Search |
| US5944769A | Interactive Network Directory Service With Integrated Maps And Directions |
| EP1105695A1 | Method And Apparatus For An Accelerated Radius Search |
| WO2020167613A1 | Autonomous And User Controlled Vehicle Summon To A Target |
| WO2000011435A1 | Method And Apparatus For An Accelerated Radius Search |
| CA2341415A1 | Method And Apparatus For An Accelerated Radius Search |
| AU1999052370A1 | Method And Apparatus For An Accelerated Radius Search |
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