Patents and the business strategies of digital platforms: A comparative analysis of the patent portfolios of large digital platforms

Recent years have recorded a growth in the number of patent applications filed by digital platforms. This paper argues that by profiling these patent portfolios, we can obtain insightful patterns on platforms' business and innovation strategies. For this purpose, we build a dataset of over 380,000 patent applications filed at least by one of ten large US and Chinese digital platforms between 1986 and 2024. A significant rise in patent activity has taken shape since 2012, largely due to an impressive number of applications filed by Chinese platforms. Platforms tend to patent alone and concentrate their patenting activity on computer technology and electric communication, with machine learning being an overarching theme. However, some platforms like Apple pursue the development of a diversified patent portfolio, while others build one more specialized and aligned with their core business. Additionally, platform applications receive a significant number of citations, despite a skewed distribution which is only slightly challenged by Apple. Finally, applications by Chinese platforms have a more limited international protection when compared to their American counterparts, as attested by their patent family sizes.