Company patents
eBay Inc.
EBAY INC's patent strategy reveals a significant and consistent decline across nearly all categories, which is surprising given the dynamic nature of e-commerce. While Business Methods & Fintech still dominates with 60.2% of its portfolio, it has seen a sharp decline of -23.3% in 2025 and -60.7% so far in 2026, mirroring similar substantial drops in key computing areas like Machine Learning & AI (-13.8% in 2025, -62.0% so far in 2026) and Databases & Information Retrieval (-16.0% in 2025, -60.7% so far in 2026), indicating a broad shift away from patenting in these core technology areas.
Patent Trend by Technology Area
Yearly patent publications since 2023
Product themes
Product-level themes inferred from filings since 2023, with category chips showing where each theme appears. Select a theme to filter the patents below.
1,057 US filings (since 2023) · 12 categories · 43 themes
Systems that use user data, preferences, and machine learning to generate tailored advice, product recommendations, goal-setting plans, or contextual information for individuals across different domains.
Systems designed to streamline and automate various commercial transactions, including mobile-enhanced processes, secure online checkouts, customer service interactions, and privilege issuance, often leveraging digital authentication.
Systems that process data to provide personalized recommendations, predict events, or automate decision-making processes based on learned patterns, user behavior, or environmental factors.
Methods and apparatus for improving the visual fidelity, resolution, or compression efficiency of video signals, often through advanced processing, up-scaling, or neural network-based filters.
User interface designs and systems that enable multiple users to interact with shared content, provide feedback, or coordinate activities, often across different devices or locations.
Systems and methods for authenticating users, devices, or applications, authorizing their access to resources based on policies, and managing digital identities across various platforms.
Methods and systems for improving the quality of video streams, generating intermediate frames, or continuously locating and following objects within a sequence of images, even under occlusion.
Designing user interfaces and interaction methods specifically for mobile or wearable devices, enabling control of external systems, monitoring user states, or facilitating real-world transactions.
Algorithms and hardware optimizations for rapidly identifying and characterizing relevant visual features (e.g., objects, motion, gradients) from images or video streams, often integrating machine learning for feature representation and recognition, with a focus on real-time performance and reduced computational cost.
Focuses on using distributed ledger technology (DLT) like blockchain to secure financial transactions, manage digital identities, or ensure data integrity and traceability across various applications.
Systems and methods utilizing artificial intelligence, particularly large language models and neural networks, to extract, summarize, generate, or categorize information from unstructured or semi-structured data sources.
Techniques for generating human-like text or other content using large pre-trained models, often involving prompt engineering, speculative decoding, or multi-modal inputs for content creation.
Platforms and methods for aggregating data from diverse sources, generating dynamic content, and delivering it efficiently to users, often involving social media, programmatic advertising, or interactive experiences within cloud environments.
Methods and systems for integrating, transforming, and managing complex or domain-specific data from disparate sources into a unified structure, often for specific applications like social networks, genomics, or business forms.
Technologies for securing, managing, and transacting with virtual currencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other blockchain-based digital assets, including hardware wallets and tokenization schemes for various purposes.
Techniques for rendering, interacting with, and managing content within augmented or virtual reality environments, including spatial tracking, gaze interaction, and dynamic multi-application display management.
Techniques utilizing deep learning models like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) or diffusion models to create new images, modify existing ones, or generate synthetic data based on various inputs or conditions.
Methods and systems for displaying complex data in three-dimensional graphical formats, allowing users to manipulate, explore, and derive insights from the data through interactive controls.
Techniques for distributing computational tasks, data storage, and service logic across cloud data centers, edge devices, and user equipment to improve performance, resilience, or resource utilization. This includes architectures for split rendering, decentralized ledgers, and microservices.
Techniques and systems designed to monitor network health, diagnose issues, optimize traffic flow, and ensure continuous operation and reduced downtime in complex network environments, including cloud and storage area networks.
Techniques for combining and analyzing information from multiple distinct data modalities (e.g., text, image, video, audio, sensor data) to derive richer insights or improve system performance and decision-making.
Systems and methods for encrypting data at a fine-grained level (e.g., per data unit or based on sensitivity) and controlling access to it, often involving delegated authorization, contextual policies, or secure data sharing.
Systems leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to dynamically adjust educational content, learning paths, goals, or feedback based on individual user performance, progress, or physiological data. This includes generating personalized exercises, recommendations, and adaptive sequencing of knowledge points.
Methods and apparatus for detecting objects and determining their three-dimensional position and orientation (pose) using imagery or point cloud data, often for navigation, surveying, or environmental understanding.
AI systems designed to engage in natural language dialogue, maintain conversation state, understand user intent, and generate relevant responses, often across multiple communication channels or modalities.
Methods and systems for identifying, extracting, and structuring specific entities, relationships, or insights from text-based documents, often involving techniques like named entity recognition, relation extraction, or summarization.
Methods and systems for efficiently allocating computing resources, balancing workloads, and managing power states to improve performance, reduce energy consumption, or enhance reliability in computing platforms.
Systems and methods for automating the lifecycle of machine learning models, including pipeline deployment, model management, versioning, and configuring for different inference environments.
Processes for creating or manipulating three-dimensional digital representations of objects or environments, including mesh generation, surface fitting, and depth estimation from multiple views.
Systems and methods for automating multi-step tasks, business processes, or service interactions, often involving AI agents, programmable interfaces, or formal orchestration languages to streamline operations.
Techniques for combining data from disparate sensor types (e.g., cameras, radar, mobile device signals) to achieve a more robust and comprehensive understanding of an environment or subject, often leveraging machine learning for interpretation and correlation.
Techniques for protecting data at rest or in backup, ensuring its integrity, confidentiality, and verifiable origin, often involving encryption, unique identifiers, or secure repositories.
Technologies enabling the creation and management of virtual computing environments, including virtual machines and virtual desktops, with an emphasis on secure and efficient remote access, updates, and performance.
Systems and methods for identifying and blocking unauthorized access, malicious activities, or abnormal behavior within a network by analyzing traffic, system logs, or behavioral patterns.
Development and optimization of novel neural network layers or architectures specifically designed to improve performance or efficiency for computer vision tasks.
Methods and systems for generating, distributing, updating, rotating, and securely destroying cryptographic keys to maintain data confidentiality and integrity over time, including quantum key distribution.
Specialized hardware, architectural designs, and computational methods to improve the speed, efficiency, and security of artificial intelligence and machine learning model execution, particularly for inference and data processing.
Tools and processes for assessing, monitoring, and improving the security configuration and external accessibility of resources deployed within cloud computing environments.
Methods and systems for monitoring, controlling, and managing Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their communication networks, often involving adaptive or intelligent frameworks for data acquisition, relay, and automation.
Utilizing machine learning, particularly deep learning, to analyze medical data such as images, sensor readings, or physiological signals for disease prediction, diagnosis, or treatment assessment.
Methods for training machine learning models across multiple decentralized devices or servers while keeping data localized, often involving aggregation of model parameters and secure communication.
Utilizing dedicated hardware components, secure enclaves, or trusted execution environments to perform cryptographic operations, enhancing security, performance, or isolation from software vulnerabilities.
Technologies for establishing and maintaining secure communication channels between devices or networks, often employing encryption, secure protocols, or virtual private networks (VPNs).
Patents
Showing 1-10 of 1983