Top patent owners: patent activity
The list of the world's top research companies highlights the important role of US companies in aeronautics research. Three of the top five patent owners are US companies - RTX (1st), General Electric (2nd) and Boeing (4th), with the remaining two places going to French Safran (3rd) and European Airbus (5th) (Figure C13).
RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon Technologies Corporation, is a major aerospace and defence company. RTX's research activities focus on advances in engine efficiency and alternative propulsion for aircraft, next-generation avionics and innovations in materials science to create lighter and stronger aircraft structures.
General Electric (GE Aerospace) is a US aircraft engine manufacturer. GE's joint venture with French engine manufacturer Safran (ranked third in the top contenders) – CFM International – is the world's largest commercial aircraft engine manufacturer.
Boeing and Airbus are both leading commercial aircraft manufacturers and major defence contractors. The two companies have formed a global duopoly for commercial aircraft since the 1990s.
Drone manufacturer DJI is the top Chinese patent owner in the field of aeronautical technology. There are also many Chinese research institutions with sizeable patent portfolios in air transport technologies such as the Beihang University, the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Northwestern Polytechnical University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Top patent owners: patent growth
Patenting activity in air transport technologies has grown dynamically over the last decades (Figures C14–C18). Almost all top patent owners have increased their patent portfolios over the entire period analysed from 2000 to 2023 (Figure C14). However, since 2020, many of the top patent owners have been on a downward trend in their annual patent family publications (Figure C15). As mentioned above, research activities have temporarily slowed down owing due to the challenges faced by the aeronautics industry in recent years, in particular due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The only exception is China, where most of the top applicants like the Aero Engine Corporation of China, the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Northwestern Polytechnical University have further expanded their patent portfolios dynamically (Figure C15).
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is the only non-Chinese company among the top 25 patent applicants to have increased its aviation patent family publications since 2020.
Top patent owners: research priorities
The research priorities of the top applicants show, unsurprisingly, that engine manufacturers such as RTX, GE, Safran, Rolls-Royce, MTU Aero Engines and Aero Engine Corporation of China clearly focus on the development of Sustainable Propulsion/efficient aircraft engine technologies (Figure C19). RTX has the largest total patent portfolio in this technology trend.
Most of the other top research companies instead publish patent families mainly in the Communication and Security technology sector. Examples include Thales, Mitsubishi Electric, China Electronics Technology Group, Beihang University and Honeywell. However, Boeing is the leader in Communication and Security technologies in absolute patent numbers (Figure C20).
Some companies also show a strong research focus on Automation and Circularity technologies, including Boeing, DJI, Toyota, Panasonic and Aviation Industry of China (AVIC). Again, Boeing has the largest patent portfolio in this field.
HMI technologies play an important role in the research activities of Honeywell and Thales.
