Paypal has a total of 5324 patents globally, out of which 2736 have been granted. Of these 5324 patents, more than 63% patents are active. United States of America is where Paypal has filed the maximum number of patents, followed by Europe and Australia. Parallelly, USA seems to be the main focused R&D center and is also the origin country of Paypal.
Paypal was founded in 1998 by Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Mallikarjun Yagnavajulla, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Rod D. Martin and Senthil Udayasooriyan. Paypal provides financial transaction processing services. The Company offers electronic payment processing services such as mobile payments and online invoicing. Paypal serves customers worldwide. As of February 2022, Paypal has a market cap of $132.95 Billion.
Do read about some of the most popular patents of Paypal which have been covered by us in this article and also you can find Paypal patents information, the worldwide patent filing activity and its patent filing trend over the years, and many other stats over Paypal patent portfolio.
How many patents does the CEO of Paypal have?
The CEO, Dan Schulman have 0 patents.
How many patents does Paypal have?
Paypal has a total of 5324 patents globally. These patents belong to 2178 unique patent families. Out of 5324 patents, 3359 patents are active.
How many Paypal patents are Alive/Dead?
Worldwide Patents

Patent Families

How Many Patents did Paypal 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 | Paypal Applications Filed | Paypal Patents Granted |
2011 | 213 | 74 |
2012 | 498 | 112 |
2013 | 382 | 163 |
2014 | 622 | 182 |
2015 | 437 | 146 |
2016 | 405 | 212 |
2017 | 410 | 262 |
2018 | 415 | 272 |
2019 | 525 | 307 |
2020 | 281 | 338 |
2021 | 184 | 350 |
2022 | 1 | 43 |
How Many Patents did Paypal File in Different Countries?

Countries in which Paypal Filed Patents
Country | Patents |
United States Of America | 4041 |
Australia | 236 |
Europe | 192 |
China | 169 |
Canada | 123 |
Japan | 85 |
Korea (South) | 61 |
Germany | 40 |
India | 21 |
Singapore | 20 |
Brazil | 12 |
Russian Federation | 10 |
Israel | 7 |
United Kingdom | 6 |
South Africa | 4 |
Mexico | 4 |
Denmark | 3 |
Indonesia | 3 |
Sweden | 2 |
France | 1 |
Austria | 1 |
Spain | 1 |
New Zealand | 1 |
Where are Research Centers of Paypal Patents Located?

10 Best Paypal Patents
US6327578B1 is the most popular patent in the Paypal portfolio. It has received 1348 citations so far from companies like IBM, Microsoft and Visa.
Below is the list of 10 most cited patents of Paypal:
Publication Number | Citation Count |
US6327578B1 | 1348 |
US20010042785A1 | 1044 |
US7089208B1 | 785 |
US6267292B1 | 770 |
US7848765B2 | 602 |
US6246996B1 | 523 |
US8380177B2 | 473 |
US6205433B1 | 423 |
US6249773B1 | 412 |
US6295522B1 | 383 |
Which Companies are using Paypal 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 Paypal patent portfolio are IBM, Mastercard and Bank Of America.
List of the top forward citing Companies –
Company | Number of Patents |
IBM | 187 |
Mastercard | 150 |
Bank Of America | 79 |
Microsoft | 76 |
Capital One Services Llc | 75 |
Samsung | 74 |
Visa | 63 |
56 | |
Amazon | 56 |
46 |
Count of 102 and 103 Type Rejections based on Paypal Patents

Top Paypal Patents used in Rejecting Most Patent Applications
Patent Number | Count of Rejected Applications |
US10839384B2 | 44 |
US9400978B2 | 37 |
US9009096B2 | 29 |
US8935777B2 | 28 |
US9442810B2 | 27 |
US9438575B2 | 25 |
US8839431B2 | 23 |
US20150348049A1 | 21 |
US8869245B2 | 20 |
US10373160B2 | 19 |
US9721283B2 | 18 |
US9208482B2 | 18 |
US10499224B2 | 17 |
US10783478B2 | 17 |
US9449208B2 | 16 |
What Percentage of Paypal US Patent Applications were Granted?
Paypal (Excluding its subsidiaries) has filed 3692 patent applications at USPTO so far (Excluding Design and PCT applications). Out of these 2266 have been granted leading to a grant rate of 70.66%.
Below are the key stats of Paypal patent prosecution at the USPTO.

Which Law Firms Filed Most US Patents for Paypal?
Law Firm | Total Applications | Success Rate |
Haynes & Boone | 2155 | 72.39% |
Maschoff Brennan | 573 | 63.99% |
Khmrg Paypal Inc | 161 | 78.82% |
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner | 108 | 67.53% |
Drinker Biddle | 45 | 6.67% |
Munck Wilson Mandala | 45 | 35.56% |
Amin Turocy & Watson | 10 | 100.00% |
Andre L Marais | 10 | 0% |
Kenyon & Kenyon | 10 | 90.00% |
Walker Innovation Inc | 8 | 100.00% |
- PayPal expects to double its annual revenue by 2025.
- It expects the expansion of its fintech platform to support that growth.
- Investors would need to pay a much higher premium for PayPal to boost its market cap to $1 trillion in just four years.
PayPal has set ambitious targets for itself, including doubling its active accounts to 750 million and more than doubling its annual revenue to over $50 billion. It expects its earnings to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% between 2020 and 2025. The company expects the growing acceptance of NFC and QR code payments to drive that growth.
Its new app adds messaging, bill payments, direct deposits, cryptocurrency services, shopping tools, and more. It also recently partnered with Synchrony Financial to add a high-yield savings account, PayPal Savings. The moves will all make it easier to launch additional features, including free stock trades and other investment services.
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
What are Paypal‘s key innovation segments?
What Technologies are Covered by Paypal?

The chart below distributes patents filed by Paypal in different countries on the basis of the technology protected in patents. It also represents the markets where Paypal thinks it’s important to protect particular technology inventions.

R&D Focus: How Paypal search focus changed over the years?

EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
Interested in knowing about the areas of innovation that are being protected by Paypal?