Chinese and US firms are “neck-and-neck” in the quality battle for the next generation of drone patents, despite China having a lead in volume, a study published on Thursday shows.
Chinese companies accounted for 44 per cent of the world’s drone patent filings in 2024, against 17 per cent for American firms, according to a report published by LexisNexis. Measured by value, however, US drone patents were on a par with China’s, leaving the two countries roughly even in total global patent asset value for the technology, as calculated by LexisNexis.
DJI, the Shenzhen-based global industry leader, has also been losing its dominance in patent filings, holding only 4 per cent of the industry’s total patent assets, barely ahead of US firms such as Boeing and Amazon, according to the report.
This compares with roughly 24 per cent of the industry’s total patents held by DJI at the end of 2018, which was more than all the other companies in the top 10 combined.
