Autonomous Driving Patent Trends in Commercial Vehicles

Remote-Control and Delivery Systems

2025/10/31

Summary
Patent application trends related to autonomous driving of commercial vehicles
Remote control (Toyota Motor Corporation)
Delivery systems (NEC Corporation)
Berth management (Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd.)

Summary

This report was created by MarkLines based on patent information from the "swimy" technical information distribution service provided by Toyota Technical Development Corporation (TTDC), and covers current technology topics surrounding the automotive industry. TTDC operates an intellectual property (IP) business and a measurement and control business. The intellectual property business collects and analyzes information on global automobile development, provides consulting on research projects, and handles foreign patent applications and technical translations.

Level 4 robotaxis and self-driving trucks are already in commercial service in some areas of the United States and China. In Japan, demonstration tests of self-driving vehicles are underway in various locations, and progress is being made in implementing self-driving technology in taxis and commercial vehicles. A robotaxi is an unmanned taxi service that utilizes automated driving technology and refers to a vehicle that can autonomously travel to its destination without the need for a driver.

Given this background, we investigated technology trends based on patent information published since 2015.

Source: Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry "Mobility DX Strategy"
https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/mono/automobile/jido_soko/pdf/mobilitydxsenryaku2025.pdf

The number of patent applications was highest in 2017 and has been on a downward trend since then. Looking at the companies with the highest number of patent applications, Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) stands out with the most, followed by Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda), Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (Nissan), Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (PIPCA), and Denso Corporation (Denso). A comparison of the number of patent applications filed by each company by year shows that Toyota has consistently filed more applications. For the other top firms, there was a trend toward more applications between 2017 and 2019, but an overall downward trend from 2020 onward.

In terms of technical fields, it can be seen that patents related to "Route planning" and "Operation management" are particularly numerous, followed by applications related to "Delivery systems" and "Remote operation”.

Toyota Technical Development Corporation

Technical information distribution service-swimy URL: https://thinktank.toyota-td.jp/pub/list
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