The race to AI dominance isn’t just playing out in product launches it’s unfolding in patent offices across the globe. For IP professionals, knowing where, how, and in what technologies companies like Samsung and Google are filing their AI patents can reveal the underlying R&D priorities, geographic strategies, and future battlegrounds for innovation.
Over the last five years, both companies have ramped up their AI portfolios but their filing behavior reveals drastically different approaches to innovation and market capture.
Who’s Filing More AI Patents?
Samsung leads in volume, filing nearly 2x the number of AI patents as Google between 2019 and 2024.
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.
Samsung is treating AI as an enterprise-wide strategic pillar, while Google appears to be selectively patenting in high-leverage AI domains particularly where hardware and software intersect.
Patent Legal Status: Alive vs Dead
Global Filing Strategy: Where Are They Showing Their Filing Interest?
Samsung dominates Asian filings, especially in South Korea and China.
Google is U.S.-first, with sparse filings in Asia.
In EPO jurisdictions, Samsung have first mover advantage as compare to Google in cross-border protection.
Year-on-Year Filing Behaviour
Samsung’s AI filings show a steady upward trend, peaking in 2022, Google’s filings have been less consistent, spiking around product releases or new AI architecture unveilings.
Samsung
Google’s filings seem tightly coupled with specific AI product milestones (e.g., LLM releases, TPUs), while Samsung follows a portfolio building approach, aiming for IP density.
Technology Focus: Where Innovation is headed
Samsung shows a broader tech spread ranging from AI semiconductors to computer vision, Google is tightly focused primarily on ML algorithms, NLP, and edge AI and Google’s patents often cite real-time optimization, transformer architectures, and federated learning.
Samsung is casting a wide net. Google is laser-focused on foundational AI components suggesting deeper intent to own core AI infrastructure.
R&D Center Alignment: Where Are Patents Coming From?
Samsung
How has Technology Evolution Over Time?
Samsung shows sustained investment in computer vision, NLP, and autonomous systems, Google’s newer filings lean toward privacy-preserving AI, energy-efficient models, and model compression.
This analysis scratched the surface by comparing Samsung and Google but they aren’t the only giants reshaping AI innovation.
State Grid Corporation of China, Tencent, Baidu, IBM, and others are filing AI patents at a staggering pace and each is taking a distinct approach.
Want to see how these players compare, and what it means for your tech or IP strategy?
Or explore AI patent trends across other industries and competitors you care about?
