Company patents
Rakuten Group, Inc.
Rakuten Group, Inc's patent strategy reveals a surprising and significant focus on aerospace technologies, with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones) accounting for 11.8% of its portfolio and Aircraft & Aerodynamics at 9.2%, despite a notable decline in patenting activity in these areas in 2025 and so far in 2026. While Business Methods & Fintech remains its largest category at 37.0% of the portfolio, the rapid growth in Computer Vision (YoY +550.0% in 2024) and Image Processing (YoY +366.7% in 2024) suggests an emerging emphasis on visual computing capabilities, though these also saw a decline in 2025.
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.
524 US filings (since 2023) · 12 categories · 37 themes
Systems and methods for monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the movement of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other aircraft, including real-time connectivity, flight planning, and route modification.
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.
Solutions for the automated deployment, retrieval, and payload handling of drones, often involving integration with other vehicles or specialized ground infrastructure for specific applications like package delivery.
Mechanisms and algorithms designed to enhance the stability, precision, and safety of drone flight, including damping systems, rotor dynamics, fault-tolerant control, and transition between flight modes.
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.
Systems and methods for authenticating users, devices, or applications, authorizing their access to resources based on policies, and managing digital identities across various platforms.
Systems for coordinating multiple drones, managing their operations within an airspace, including real-time connectivity, traffic management, and task allocation for cooperative missions.
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 that process data to provide personalized recommendations, predict events, or automate decision-making processes based on learned patterns, user behavior, or environmental factors.
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.
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.
Systems and methods for ensuring robust and reliable aircraft control, often involving multiple control computers, adaptive control laws, or sophisticated pilot input interfaces, especially in the presence of failures or environmental disturbances.
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.
Systems and methods for using drones equipped with various sensors (optical, chemical, LiDAR) to collect data for monitoring environmental conditions, inspecting infrastructure, or assessing agricultural assets.
Methods and systems for managing the interaction, communication, and collaborative tasks among multiple autonomous entities, or between autonomous entities and a central control system or users.
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.
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.
Development and optimization of novel neural network layers or architectures specifically designed to improve performance or efficiency for computer vision tasks.
Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to enhance cryptographic systems, such as generating encryption models, improving zero-trust architectures, or enabling privacy-preserving computations like federated learning.
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.
Technologies for detecting operational parameters, monitoring component health, and diagnosing malfunctions in aircraft using various sensors and data analysis, often employing AI/ML.
Design and control of electromechanical or hydraulic actuators for moving aircraft components like wing tips, control surfaces, or landing gear, often focusing on efficiency, redundancy, or specific operational profiles.
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.
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.
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.
Techniques for protecting data at rest or in backup, ensuring its integrity, confidentiality, and verifiable origin, often involving encryption, unique identifiers, or secure repositories.
Techniques and hardware for autonomous systems to gather and interpret data about their surroundings, including obstacle detection, object recognition, and depth estimation, to inform control decisions.
Developing and applying machine learning algorithms that leverage quantum computing principles, such as quantum circuits or autoencoders, for tasks like simulation or data processing.
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.
Automated systems using image processing and artificial intelligence to identify, classify, and assess the extent of damage to structures or objects, supporting maintenance or insurance claims.
Technologies for detecting adverse weather conditions or road hazards and providing timely alerts and adaptive control strategies to vehicles and drivers to enhance safety.
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.
Algorithms and systems for generating, optimizing, and executing trajectories for autonomous vehicles or robots to move through an environment, often involving obstacle avoidance, route validation, and goal reaching.
Drone propulsion and power architectures combining multiple energy sources, such as internal combustion engines, electric motors, batteries, and generators, to extend flight duration, range, or payload capacity.
Integration of electric motors, power generation, and distribution systems for propelling aircraft, including components for coupling motors to propellers and managing electrical power.
Innovations in aircraft cabin design, including reconfigurable spaces, passenger amenities, integrated displays, and automated control of cabin devices based on flight status.
Systems and methods for dynamically adjusting traffic signal timings and phases at intersections based on real-time traffic conditions, priority vehicles, and predictive analytics to optimize flow and reduce congestion.
Patents
Showing 1-5 of 5
Sensor-based Environment Perception