According to the statistics of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) in Munich, 36.2% of the AI-related patents filed in Germany last year came from applicants based in the USA. Only 18.1% came from Germany, i.e. exactly half as many patent applications. This was followed by Japan with 13.3%, China with 5.2%, South Korea with 3.7%, France with 3.3% and the Netherlands with 2.9%. German and European patent offices published a total of around 5,600 AI-related patent applications in 2018.

The evaluation for the sub-areas indicates that AI patent applications are mostly computer-related (1539). Traffic and vehicle technology ranked second with 966 application, followed by medical technology in third place with 702 applications. Germany is the traffic and vehicle technology leader in terms of the number of applications, beating out Japan and the USA; Germany is also the recognition/diagnostics and communication systems leader. Otherwise US applicants rank first in almost all areas; Japan is the only other country with a first place ranking - in robotics.