A new report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has laid bare the sheer velocity of the global generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) race.
An Innovation Explosion Without Precedent
According to WIPO's Technology SPARK report, published GenAI patent families — a standard measure of new inventions — rose from approximately 14,000 in 2023 to over 37,800 in 2025. More strikingly, more than 56,000 new GenAI patent families were published in 2024 and 2025 combined, exceeding the cumulative output of the entire period from 2014 to 2023. GenAI now accounts for 8.7 per cent of all AI-related patent family publications, up from 6.1 per cent in 2023 and 4.2 per cent in 2017.
The figures represent more than a statistical milestone. They describe a structural shift in the global innovation economy — one in which the ability to generate, protect, and commercialize AI inventions is becoming a core dimension of national competitiveness, not merely a corporate concern.
Who Is Leading — and Who Is Not
The geography of GenAI patenting is concentrated. Six of the world's top ten GenAI patent applicants are based in China, which remains the world's largest source of GenAI patent publications by a substantial margin, with over 43,000 patent families published by China-based inventors in 2024 and 2025. China's compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for GenAI patent families between 2023 and 2025 stands at 64 per cent.
The United States recorded a 92 per cent CAGR over the same period, reflecting how the wave of commercial GenAI development by American companies began to translate into accelerating patent activity. Japan recorded the highest relative growth rate of any top inventor location — a 210 per cent CAGR — rising from fourth to third place globally. Germany overtook the United Kingdom as Europe's leading GenAI inventor location, with an 85 per cent CAGR, while Canada and Switzerland also recorded triple-digit growth rates of 109 per cent and 124 per cent respectively.
Japan's SoftBank leads all global GenAI patent applicants, having published nearly 3,000 patent families during 2024 and 2025. China's Tencent Holdings, Ping An Insurance Group, and Baidu follow, alongside research institutions and infrastructure companies. Tech giants Alphabet, Microsoft, and IBM from the United States also feature in the top ten.
No Middle Eastern entity appears in WIPO's current top-tier rankings.
The IP Dimension of AI Competition
The WIPO report makes clear that the race to protect GenAI inventions is increasingly being led by large multinational enterprises operating across diverse industries — not just technology firms. Finance, telecommunications, infrastructure, and digital services companies are all filing patents at accelerating rates.
Policy Frameworks and Competitive Implications
The WIPO data underscores the strategic value of monitoring patenting trends as a policymaking tool. For regional governments, tracking where GenAI innovation is accelerating — and which technologies are gaining traction — offers a roadmap for targeted investment, regulatory preparation, and international partnership.
The broader lesson from the WIPO report may be this: in an era when AI patents are being filed by insurance companies, telecoms operators, and infrastructure firms as readily as by technology giants, the economic implications of GenAI innovation extend across multiple sectors.
Remaining Questions
Several aspects of this topic fall outside verified source material and warrant further investigation. The specific volume and growth rate of AI patent filings originating from Middle Eastern inventors or institutions is not covered in the WIPO report and remains unverified. The degree to which national AI strategies have translated into measurable R&D output, university research commercialization, or domestic IP generation is unclear. Whether regional free zones or IP regulatory reforms have meaningfully influenced patent filing behavior among companies operating in the Middle East has not been documented in available sources. The extent to which multinational technology companies operating in the region are filing patents locally versus in their home jurisdictions is also unknown. Finally, how WIPO's technical assistance programs — referenced in the organization's mandate — are being applied specifically to Middle Eastern member states is not detailed in the current report.
Several verified sources, together with artificial intelligence, were used in the preparation of this article. The content was reviewed by our editorial team prior to publication. Disclosure provided in accordance with Article 50 of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act).
