Intellectual property and standards capture.

Foundational patents are being filed in volume. The companies, universities, and nations that establish strong IP positions now will shape licensing economics for decades.

Quantum is at the stage of its development where foundational patents are being filed in volume — and the companies, universities, and nations that establish strong IP positions now will shape licensing economics for decades. Boards that have never thought of themselves as quantum companies may nonetheless find their long-term product roadmaps touched by someone else's patent portfolio.

A. The Filing Landscape

According to the MIT Quantum Index Report 2025, global quantum-technology patent filings grew roughly 500% between 2014 and 2024. In raw filing volume, China now accounts for approximately 60 percent of global quantum patent applications, with the United States in second position at around 19 percent. But the picture shifts when one looks at international patent families (an arguably more meaningful measure of commercially defensible IP, because it reflects a decision to pay for protection in multiple major jurisdictions). On that measure China's global footprint is less pronounced, while U.S. and allied filings dominate. The difference matters: Chinese filings are domestically focused and often subsidy-driven, while U.S. and European filings are concentrated in qubit hardware, error correction, and algorithms that others will need to license.

The concentration already taking hold is striking. The MIT report identifies IBM, Google, Microsoft, Intel, and Baidu among the top patent filers, with IBM and Google the two clear leaders in granted quantum patents. Specialized quantum companies are also accumulating meaningful portfolios. IonQ announced in March 2025 that it owns or controls nearly 400 quantum-networking patents (granted and pending) following its acquisition of Qubitekk and its controlling stake in ID Quantique — and its total patent portfolio across quantum technologies exceeds 900 after the IDQ acquisition closed in May 2025. Quantinuum has filed aggressively on error correction and post-quantum cryptography algorithms. Corporations hold roughly 54 percent of quantum patent families; universities, roughly 37 percent.

B. Why This Reaches Companies That Are Not “Quantum Companies”

Three features of the current situation expose non-quantum-focused enterprises to quantum IP owned by others:

Inbound licensing risk. Any company whose products eventually incorporate or rely upon quantum-based algorithms, simulations, or encryption will be forced to pay license fees to whomever owns the underlying IP.

Application-layer infrastructure. Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Google Quantum AI since 2018 on battery materials and related optimization. Volkswagen has worked with D-Wave on urban vehicle-routing optimization for bus fleets. JPMorgan has filed on quantum algorithms for portfolio risk analysis. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus operate active quantum-sensing programs for navigation and defense. These are not pure quantum companies — they are incumbent operators making strategic bets on the future's quantum infrastructure.

Standards-body capture. Technical standards bodies — IEEE, ISO/IEC, ETSI — are actively developing quantum-related standards across cryptography, networking, and sensing. Companies participating in these processes gain early visibility into technical direction that enables them to, in some cases, build early royalty-generating positions. Companies absent from the table, meanwhile, face whatever the final standard becomes upon publication.

C. The Governance Question

Boards of companies with any plausible quantum exposure should ensure that executive leadership has (i) mapped the quantum patent landscape in the company's sector and industry — at least at the level of who is filing what, and where the company's own activities might create external licensing risk; (ii) made a deliberate decision about whether to file defensively on the company's own quantum-adjacent work, even if that work is not the company's core product; and (iii) sought out opportunities to participate in the standards-creation process. The cost of each step is modest.