Screenshot of a MLex report on robot patents globally over the last six years.
John Koetsier
China has the most patents in the humanoid robot space, and it’s not even close. But, according to a new LexisNexis analysis of robot patents over the past six years, individual U.S. patents tend to be stronger and higher-quality.
The analysis by LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions dug through more than 26,000 patent families tied to three technologies at the heart of building a walking, working humanoid: interaction systems, morphology (the body itself), as well as control and planning systems.
China’s share of morphology-related humanoid patents is now 73% of the total global total, and no one else is close. South Korea sits a distant second at 11%, Japan third at 7%, and the U.S. fourth at just 5%. The numbers shift a little when you factor in patent strength: China is at 63%, the U.S. captures 11% of the most valuable patents, and Japan 10%.
Over the past decade, Chinese patent activity roughly doubled in interaction systems, grew about 2.5x in morphology, and jumped about 5x in control and planning architectures. Morphology filings spiked sharply starting in 2023, right when humanoids went from lab curiosity to venture-capital obsession.
All of this activity lines up neatly with Beijing’s industrial policy.
China flagged robotics as strategic in its 14th Five-Year Plan back in 2021, prioritizing exactly the building blocks humanoids need: integrated joints, electronic skin, bionic perception, intelligent control. Its newest Five-Year Plan, published in March, names embodied AI as one of six “future industries” to nurture through 2030.
Quality over quantity?
LexisNexis doesn’t just count raw numbers of patents. Its Patent Asset Index weighs a portfolio by how strong its patents actually are, judged by how often other inventions build on them and how broadly they’re protected across markets.
By that measure, China’s lead shrinks.
China still leads morphology, but with 63% of global portfolio strength versus 73% raw volume. Other country rankings shift too. By sheer count, South Korea ranks second in morphology patents, followed by Japan, then the U.S. dead last. Switch to portfolio strength, and the U.S. moves to second place globally, behind only China. In other words, American inventors hold roughly one-twentieth of the patents but about one-tenth of the value.
And, across all three technology categories, U.S. patents scored the highest average quality of anyone.
Patent winners by raw count:
- China — 73%
- South Korea — 11%
- Japan — 7%
- United States — 5%
Patent winners portfolio quality:
- China — 63%
- United States — 11%
- Japan — 10%
- South Korea — 7%
But whichever way you look at it, China’s winning
It’s all well and good to look at average patent strength, but both in raw numbers and in overall portfolio quality, China is in the lead. And not just by a little.
Interestingly, nine of the 10 organizations with the strongest patent positions across the three core humanoid technologies are companies whose business extends well beyond humanoids. (That makes sense: humanoids don’t necessarily fit into one tidy patent class. They’re stitched together from AI models, perception systems, batteries, compact actuators, safety systems and fleet software.) That includes industrial robotics veterans Fanuc and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, AI and computing players Alphabet and Nvidia, surgical-robotics specialist Intuitive Surgical, Samsung, plus the Chinese Academy of Sciences. For most of them, humanoid-specific patents make up less than 10% of their total portfolio.
When you rank dedicated humanoid startups by patent strength, six of the top 10 are Chinese, including Fourier, Agibot and LimX Dynamics. Germany’s Agile Robots and American humanoid robot startups like Figure AI, Apptronik and Agility Robotics also hit the top 10.
China’s UBTech stands alone, however, as the only true humanoid pure-play among the overall top-ranked holders. The three core humanoid technologies make up more than a quarter of its portfolio.
How the U.S. foreign robot ban could impact this
Patents are a leading indicator. They show where R&D is happening before it shows up in a warehouse or on a factory floor. The market they’re racing toward is enormous, with Goldman Sachs eyeing a roughly $38 billion humanoid market by 2035 and Morgan Stanley floating $5 trillion by 2050 once you fold in supply chains and support.
But now the U.S. is essentially banning Chinese – and all foreign – robots from American markets. This is likely to change those forecasts.
Of course, a market-access ban and a patent lead are two very different levers, and the ban touches only one of them. Patents are territorial and don’t care about import rules: China’s 73% share of morphology filings sits in patent offices around the world regardless of whether a single Unitree humanoid ever clears U.S. customs again. Walling China off from its largest export market pressures commercialization, not innovation, but could eventually impact innovation levels if commercializations domestically and around the rest of the world is insufficient.
Of course, cutting off Chinese hardware hands domestic players like Figure, Apptronik and Agility a protected runway as well as a powerful incentive to build out all the actuators, sensors and control stacks they need.
Over time, that should translate into a greater quantity of U.S. patent filings, not just higher-quality ones. The catch of course is that an import ban doesn’t stop Chinese firms from holding U.S. patents, so American manufacturers may find themselves designing around — or licensing — Chinese IP on core morphology.
The likeliest outcome is an increasingly bifurcated race: China with volume, the U.S. with quality.
But the U.S. is going to start building some quantity very soon, and there’s already some very good quality in China.
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