Where does Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC rank among US patent assignees?

According to USPTO PatentsView (2015–2025 granted utility patents), Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC ranks #5,916 of 49,997 assignees by granted-patent volume, the same sort as the companies listing and top-holders ranking. See /methodology/#corpus-placement.

How many patents does Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC hold?

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC holds 57 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025, spanning 6 technology areas.

What is Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's Innovation Score?

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC has an Innovation Score of 42.9 out of 100 (top 29% of the corpus). This composite metric weighs portfolio volume (40%), grant velocity (20%), technology breadth (25%), and claim depth (15%).

What technology areas does Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC focus on?

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's top technology area is G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing) with 54 patents, ranking #915 of 13,878 assignees active in that subclass. Grants appear in 6 CPC subclasses total.

Is Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's patent grant rate increasing or decreasing?

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's recent grant velocity is +217% compared to the prior five-year period (grant years, not application filing dates). This indicates accelerating grant output.

What does claim depth mean for Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's patents?

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's patents average 18.7 claims each. This is an aggregate descriptive count from the grant record; it does not establish claim scope, legal strength, enforceability, or design-around risk.

How is the Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC patent data sourced?

All patent data comes from USPTO PatentsView, a public research dataset maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office covering US granted utility patents from 2015 to 2025.

USPTO 2015–2025 USPTO PatentsView US Corporation

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC

USPTO PatentsView assignee record - 57 granted patents across 6 technology areas, recorded in grant years 2015–2025. Grant-trend analysis is cross-referenced to USPTO Patent Public Search; it does not measure application filings, current R&D, or legal strength. Primary class: G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing).

Compiled by PlainPatent · May 15, 2026

RSS updates for this company

Explore the portfolio See the ranking

The verdict

According to USPTO PatentsView, Black ranks #5,916 of 49,997 tracked US assignees by granted-patent volume, with 57 patents across 6 technology areas.

#5,916
of 49,997 US assignees by volume: Top 29%
by Innovation Score (42.9/100): 18.7
avg claims per patent: +217%
grant velocity, last 5 yrs

USPTO PatentsView assignee plate

Corpus R5916 · US Corporation #5,916 · 57 grants

GRANTS-SMALL · UPPER-Q · PHOTO-FINISH · CPC-NARROW · INNOV-PAR · CLAIMS-RICH · TYPE-USCORP · VEL-SURGE · BOOK-FULL

GRANTS-SMALL 57 grants
UPPER-Q #5,916/49,997
PHOTO-FINISH Assurant
CPC-NARROW G06F · 6 areas
INNOV-PAR 42.9/100
CLAIMS-RICH 18.7 claims/avg
TYPE-USCORP US Corporation
VEL-SURGE +217% vel
BOOK-FULL 10/10 fields

Nearest grant-volume peer: Assurant, Inc. (±0 grants)

Instrument codes from this assignee’s USPTO PatentsView grant sheet: volume band, corpus rank, photo-finish peer, lead CPC, Innovation Score, claim depth, assignee type, velocity, and book completeness. Not a USPTO rating of patent strength.

How Black’s 42.9 Innovation Score adds up

The same four weighted components behind every Innovation Score on PlainPatent: portfolio volume, grant velocity, technology breadth, and claim depth.

Volume 14.0 pts (33%) Velocity 9.0 pts (21%) Breadth 8.7 pts (20%) Claim depth 11.2 pts (26%)

Qualcomm Incorporated · highest

85
Acciona Windpower · near

43
Biomet Sports Medicine · near

43
Black Hills IP… · this assignee

43
GS Caltex · near

43
Hangzhou Zero Zero… · near

43
3D Lighting… · lowest

7

What this shows Black's Innovation Score is 42.9/100 (top 29% of the PatentsView-derived corpus). The chart places that score against the nearest Innovation Score peers plus corpus poles, not a reprint of the volume ranking.

Does more volume mean deeper claims for Black?

Each dot is one of Black’s 8 nearest volume peers (same corpus rank neighbourhood as the chart above), placed by total granted patents (horizontal) against average claims per patent (vertical). Black’s own 18.7 claims/patent is ABOVE the 15.9 median for these volume peers. More thorough claims than most filers at this scale, not just more of them.

Black vs its 8 nearest volume peers: granted patents vs average claims per patent. Source: USPTO PatentsView.

Where Black's grants concentrate

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC is a focused PatentsView assignee: 6 CPC subclasses with 94.7% of grants classified under G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing). Peak complete grant year is 2020 (9 grants) versus a trough of 2 in 2015. By volume, Black sits between Assurant, Inc. and Cardio Flow, Inc..

Black's three-year grant acceleration

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC shows 23 grants in 2022–2024 against only 17 in 2019–2021. That prior window is too thin for a growth multiple (rename and spin-out assignees look artificially high when the baseline is near zero), so PlainPatent withholds a ranked acceleration claim here.

Assurant

57
Auto-kabel Manage…

57
Automatic Bar Con…

57
BOE Mled Technolo…

57
Citicorp Credit S…

57
Curver Luxembourg…

57
Carbon Technology…

57
Cardio Flow

57
Black Hills IP Ho… ◀

57

What this shows Black holds 57 patents at rank #5,917, shown against the 8 assignees closest to it in grant volume rather than the industry's largest filers.

Companies ranked near Black

By rank, the assignees closest to #5,917 in granted patent volume.

Leaders in G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing)

Other assignees with the most granted patents in Black's primary technology class.

Assignees with similar portfolio profiles

Two PlainPatent-derived peer sets for Black, neither rank-band nor same-CPC leaders (those blocks stay above). In G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing), Black ranks #915 of 13,878 assignees by patent count in that subclass.

Similar innovation score

Nearest assignees by Innovation Score (43 here).

Hangzhou Zero Zero Technology Co., Ltd. 43 Acciona Windpower, S.A. 43 Biomet Sports Medicine, LLC 43 GS Caltex Corporation 43

Similar claim depth

Nearest assignees by average claims per patent (18.7 here).

Viacom International Inc. 18.7 avg REE Automotive Ltd 18.7 avg Valencell, Inc. 18.7 avg AtriCure, Inc. 18.7 avg

Black's Innovation Score vs. every tracked assignee

Composite of portfolio volume, grant velocity, technology breadth, and claim depth (0–100)

43 Top 29% higher than 71% of 49,997 US assignees

Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US assignees. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source USPTO PatentsView, PlainPatent Innovation Score · 2015–2025

USPTO utility patent grants by year · 2015–2025

Grants by year

Teal-shaded recent years (2020–present) versus the 2015–2019 baseline. Full figures in the table below.

View data table

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC patent grants by year, 2015–2025
Year	Patents Granted	Share of Period
2015	2	3.5%
2016	2	3.5%
2017	3	5.3%
2018	3	5.3%
2019	2	3.5%
2020	9	15.8%
2021	6	10.5%
2022	9	15.8%
2023	8	14.0%
2024	6	10.5%
2025partial year	7	12.3%

Which technologies does Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC patent most?

G06F - Electric Digital Data Processing 54

G06Q - Information AND Communication Technology [ICT] Specially Adapted FOR Administrative, Commercial, Financial, Managerial OR Supervisory PURPOSES; Systems OR Methods Specially Adapted FOR Administrative, Commercial, Financial, Managerial OR Supervisory Purposes, NOT Otherwise Provided FOR 53

G09G - Arrangements OR Circuits FOR Control OF Indicating Devices Using Static Means TO Present Variable Information 4

G06N - Computing Arrangements Based ON Specific Computational Models 2

H04L - Transmission OF Digital Information, e.g. Telegraphic Communication 2

G06V - Image OR Video Recognition OR Understanding 1

Top 6 of 6 technology areas

More on this record

Data Source

USPTO PatentsView, US granted patents 2015–2025

View all rankings → How is Innovation Score calculated?

What to do with this data

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's patent record in context - here's where to go next.

Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC's lead technology class is G06F (Electric Digital Data Processing), 94.7% of its portfolio - see every assignee active in that class. Explore G06F
Ranked #5,916 of 49,997 tracked assignees by patent volume - see the full leaderboard. See the ranking
Compare Black Hills IP Holdings, LLC against Assurant, Inc., an assignee filing at a similar volume. Compare portfolios
Innovation Score of 42.9/100 blends volume, velocity, technology breadth, and claim depth. How it's calculated

Figures reflect USPTO PatentsView grant data through May 2026; pending applications not yet granted are not counted.

Data sourced from USPTO PatentsView - official U.S. government patent data. See our methodology for computation details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainPatent

Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Data is sourced from the USPTO PatentsView database. Consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on this data.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Data sources used on this page

USPTO PatentsView - the disambiguated bulk patent-grant, assignee, and CPC data this page's figures are derived from. patentsview.org
Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) - the joint USPTO/EPO classification scheme used to group patents by technology area. cooperativepatentclassification.org
USPTO Patent Public Search - the official interface to verify the status of any individual patent. ppubs.uspto.gov

Compiled by PlainPatent, US Patent Intelligence Editorial Process · May 15, 2026

Every figure on PlainPatent is rendered directly from USPTO source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on USPTO source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 2026.