The global autonomous vehicles market is expected to reach an industry size of $126.8 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 19.6% according to a report by Research and Markets.
In the past 10 years, the trend of patent filing skyrocketed starting from 2013. This is the year that most major car companies announced their commitment to focus in self-driving car technology.
During 2012, Google demonstrated a self-driving car capability under the Nevada motor vehicle examiners in Las Vegas. Also, in the same year, Florida and California allowed testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads. These events may have been a factor in the sudden increase of patent applications filed on autonomous vehicles.
We took a look at the patent landscape of Autonomous Vehicles from 2008 to present. This study focused on autonomous cars and did not take into consideration drones and vehicles used for flight, aerospace, or underwater applications. The data only covered US patents and the date used for dataset extraction is the Priority Date
