Competitive Intelligence
Patent concentration by technology
The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) measures how concentrated patent ownership is in each domain. HHI above 2,500 signals a market dominated by a handful of incumbents — a meaningful barrier for new entrants.
Domains analyzed
13
Highly concentrated
1
Competitively open
7
HHI > 2,500
Highly Concentrated
Top 3 companies hold >50% of patents. Market is dominated by a few incumbents.
HHI 1,500–2,500
Moderately Concentrated
Competitive market with some leaders. Challengers can gain ground.
HHI < 1,500
Competitively Distributed
No dominant player. Open for new entrants and diverse innovation.
Methodology
The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) is calculated as the sum of the squared market shares of all firms, where market share is measured by patent count. HHI = Σ(sᵢ × 100)² — ranging from 0 (perfect competition) to 10,000 (monopoly). Antitrust regulators typically define markets above 2,500 as highly concentrated. Data sourced from PatentBrief's enriched corpus; only patents with AI-generated industry tag classifications are included. Assignee-level counts exclude cross-licensed or transferred patents that may not reflect current ownership.