Salesforce has a total of 4918 patents globally, out of which 2857 have been granted. Of these 4918 patents, more than 85% patents are active. United States of America is where Salesforce has filed the maximum number of patents, followed by Europe and Japan, it has generated an annual revenue of $17.1 billion in the year 2020. Parallelly, United States of America seems to be the main focused R&D center and is also the origin country of Salesforce.
Salesforce was founded in the year 1999 by Marc Benioff and Parker Harris. Company is doing business in cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform. As of January 2022, Salesforce has a market cap of $218.79 Billion.
Do read about some of the most popular patents of Salesforce which have been covered by us in this article and also you can find Salesforce’s patents information, the worldwide patent filing activity and its patent filing trend over the years, and many other stats over Salesforce’s patent portfolio.
How many patents does the founder and the CEO of Salesforce have?
The CEO and co-founder, Marc Benioff has 0 patents and the co-founder Parker Harris has 0 patents respectively.
How many patents does Salesforce have?
Salesforce has a total of 4918 patents globally. These patents belong to 2717 unique patent families. Out of 4918 patents, 4224 patents are active.
How many Salesforce patents are Alive/Dead?
Worldwide Patents
Patent Families
How Many Patents did Salesforce 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 | Salesforce Applications Filed | Salesforce Patents Granted |
| 2011 | 268 | 17 |
| 2012 | 211 | 45 |
| 2013 | 332 | 120 |
| 2014 | 285 | 179 |
| 2015 | 327 | 195 |
| 2016 | 364 | 245 |
| 2017 | 559 | 247 |
| 2018 | 687 | 230 |
| 2019 | 810 | 376 |
| 2020 | 522 | 545 |
| 2021 | 169 | 595 |
| 2022 | – | 36 |
How Many Patents did Salesforce File in Different Countries?
Countries in which Salesforce Filed Patents
| Country | Patents |
| United States Of America | 4204 |
| Europe | 130 |
| Japan | 124 |
| Canada | 86 |
| China | 82 |
| Australia | 69 |
| Brazil | 11 |
| India | 8 |
| Taiwan | 6 |
| Israel | 6 |
| Germany | 4 |
| Singapore | 2 |
| Hong Kong (S.A.R.) | 2 |
| Korea (South) | 1 |
| Hungary | 1 |
Where are Research Centers of Salesforce Patents Located?
10 Best Salesforce Patents
US7730478B2 is the most popular patent in the Salesforce portfolio. It has received 663 citations so far from companies like Boadin Technology and Oracle.
Below is the list of 10 most cited patents of Salesforce:
| Publication Number | Citation Count |
| US7730478B2 | 663 |
| US8095531B2 | 446 |
| US7209929B2 | 390 |
| US20130055147A1 | 377 |
| US9760620B2 | 267 |
| US7800613B2 | 201 |
| USD786896S1 | 182 |
| USD798886S1 | 174 |
| USD761812S1 | 173 |
| USD753703S1 | 158 |
Which Companies are using Salesforce 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 Salesforce patent portfolio are IBM, Microsoft, and SAP.
List of the top forward citing Companies –
| Company | Number of Patents |
| IBM | 419 |
| Microsoft | 307 |
| SAP | 132 |
| Oracle | 117 |
| 89 | |
| 78 | |
| Amazon | 78 |
| The Bank Of New York | 50 |
| Samsung | 39 |
| Adobe | 37 |
Count of 102 and 103 Type Rejections based on Salesforce Patents
Top Salesforce Patents used in Rejecting Most Patent Applications
| Patent Number | Count of Rejected Applications |
| US8566648B2 | 26 |
| US9984126B2 | 21 |
| US9479387B2 | 21 |
| US9240016B2 | 20 |
| US7800613B2 | 19 |
| US10701054B2 | 19 |
| US9307006B2 | 18 |
| US9569511B2 | 17 |
| US8595635B2 | 16 |
| US20120144501A1 | 16 |
| US9264391B2 | 15 |
| US10319046B2 | 15 |
| US8886766B2 | 14 |
| US7565338B2 | 14 |
| US8918085B2 | 13 |
What Percentage of Salesforce US Patent Applications were Granted?
Salesforce (Excluding its subsidiaries) has filed 3459 patent applications at USPTO so far (Excluding Design and PCT applications). Out of these 2275 have been granted leading to a grant rate of 84.35%.
Below are the key stats of Salesforce patent prosecution at the USPTO.
Which Law Firms Filed Most US Patents for Salesforce?
| Law Firm | Total Application | Success Rate |
| Salesforce Com Inc | 623 | 81.00% |
| Lkglobal Salesforce | 452 | 72.16% |
| Salesforce Com Inc Dergosits & Noah | 276 | 82.72% |
| Sfdc Jwmh | 245 | 90.04% |
| Salesforce Com Holland & Hart | 185 | 89.34% |
| Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt Salesforce Com | 156 | 87.70% |
| Kwan & Olynick Llp Salesforce | 154 | 85.71% |
| Butzel Salesforce | 143 | 78.95% |
| Salesforce Com Skgf | 137 | 95.92% |
| Salesforce Com Inc Zilka Kotab Pc | 123 | 97.56% |
Salesforce is changing the way we live, work, and interact with one another. Its primary aim is to keep leveraging its incredible culture of invention to deliver solutions that help customers change their businesses digitally. Even though the company has gone a long way since 1999, its innovation strategy hasn’t changed.
Salesforce is about to enter a new era in corporate software. Disruptive technologies such as AI and IoT, as well as voice and augmented reality, are speeding the pace of change and will be implemented in the future.
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
What are Salesforce key innovation segments?
What Technologies are Covered by Salesforce?
The chart below distributes patents filed by Salesforce in different countries on the basis of the technology protected in patents. It also represents the markets where Salesforce thinks it’s important to protect particular technology inventions.
R&D Focus: How Salesforce search focus changed over the years?
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
Interested in knowing about the areas of innovation that are being protected by Salesforce?