Where does Bnsf Railway Company rank among US patent assignees?

According to USPTO PatentsView (2015–2025 granted utility patents), Bnsf Railway Company ranks #2,511 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 Bnsf Railway Company hold?

Bnsf Railway Company holds 155 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025, spanning 57 technology areas.

What is Bnsf Railway Company's Innovation Score?

Bnsf Railway Company has an Innovation Score of 73.8 out of 100 (top 1% of the corpus). This composite metric weighs portfolio volume (40%), grant velocity (20%), technology breadth (25%), and claim depth (15%).

What technology areas does Bnsf Railway Company focus on?

Bnsf Railway Company's top technology area is B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic) with 82 patents, ranking #5 of 195 assignees active in that subclass. Grants appear in 57 CPC subclasses total.

Is Bnsf Railway Company's patent grant rate increasing or decreasing?

Bnsf Railway Company's recent grant velocity is +882% compared to the prior five-year period (grant years, not application filing dates). This indicates accelerating grant output.

What does claim depth mean for Bnsf Railway Company's patents?

Bnsf Railway Company's patents average 18.9 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 Bnsf Railway Company 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

Bnsf Railway Company

USPTO PatentsView assignee record - 155 granted patents across 57 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: B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic).

Compiled by PlainPatent · May 15, 2026

RSS updates for this company

Explore the portfolio See the ranking

The verdict

According to USPTO PatentsView, Bnsf ranks #2,511 of 49,997 tracked US assignees by granted-patent volume, with 155 patents across 57 technology areas.

#2,511
of 49,997 US assignees by volume: Top 1%
by Innovation Score (73.8/100): 18.9
avg claims per patent: +882%
grant velocity, last 5 yrs

USPTO PatentsView assignee plate

Corpus R2511 · US Corporation #2,511 · 155 grants

GRANTS-MID · TOP-DECILE · PHOTO-FINISH · CPC-WIDE · INNOV-STRONG · CLAIMS-RICH · TYPE-USCORP · VEL-SURGE · BOOK-FULL

GRANTS-MID 155 grants
TOP-DECILE #2,511/49,997
PHOTO-FINISH Access Business…
CPC-WIDE B61L · 57 areas
INNOV-STRONG 73.8/100
CLAIMS-RICH 18.9 claims/avg
TYPE-USCORP US Corporation
VEL-SURGE +882% vel
BOOK-FULL 10/10 fields

Nearest grant-volume peer: Access Business Group International LLC (±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 Bnsf’s 73.8 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 17.4 pts (24%) Velocity 20.0 pts (27%) Breadth 25.0 pts (34%) Claim depth 11.3 pts (15%)

Qualcomm Incorporated · highest

85
Verizon Patent and… · near

74
ZTE · near

74
Bnsf Railway · this assignee

74
The Boeing · near

74
Roku · near

74
3D Lighting… · lowest

7

What this shows Bnsf's Innovation Score is 73.8/100 (top 1% 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 Bnsf?

Each dot is one of Bnsf’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). Bnsf’s own 18.9 claims/patent is ABOVE the 16.8 median for these volume peers. More thorough claims than most filers at this scale, not just more of them.

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

How Bnsf's grant cadence moved

Between 2020–2024, Bnsf Railway Company received 108 grants versus 11 in 2015–2019 (+882% equal-window velocity, top decile growth). Across complete PatentsView years, output peaked in 2024 at 38 grants and bottomed in 2017 at 1. Lead class B61L accounts for 52.9% of the portfolio across 57 subclasses. Volume neighbours: Streamlight, Inc. (#2,506) and Idemia Identity & Security France (#2,514).

Bnsf's three-year grant acceleration

From 2019–2021 to 2022–2024, Bnsf Railway Company moved from 21 to 88 grants (4.19x the prior three-year total, a multiple, not a CAGR). Among 3,296 tracked assignees with ≥100 grants and ≥20 prior-period grants, that multiple ranks #42. See the growth leaderboard.

Streamlight

156
Visera

156
Zhejiang Jinko So…

156
Access Business G…

155
Berkshire Grey Op…

155
Emerson Process M…

155
Genomatica

155
Idemia Identity &…

155
Bnsf Railway ◀

155

What this shows Bnsf holds 155 patents at rank #2,510, shown against the 8 assignees closest to it in grant volume rather than the industry's largest filers.

Companies ranked near Bnsf

By rank, the assignees closest to #2,510 in granted patent volume.

Leaders in B61L (Guiding Railway Traffic)

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

Assignees with similar portfolio profiles

Two PlainPatent-derived peer sets for Bnsf, neither rank-band nor same-CPC leaders (those blocks stay above). In B61L (Guiding Railway Traffic), Bnsf ranks #5 of 195 assignees by patent count in that subclass.

Similar innovation score

Nearest assignees by Innovation Score (74 here).

The Boeing Company 74 ZTE Corporation 74 Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc. 74 Roku, Inc. 74

Similar claim depth

Nearest assignees by average claims per patent (18.9 here).

The Heil Co. 18.9 avg u-blox AG 18.9 avg Atmel Corporation 18.9 avg Sandisk Technologies, Inc. 18.9 avg

Bnsf's Innovation Score vs. every tracked assignee

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

74 Top 1% higher than 99% 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

Bnsf Railway Company patent grants by year, 2015–2025
Year	Patents Granted	Share of Period
2015	2	1.3%
2016	3	1.9%
2017	1	0.6%
2018	4	2.6%
2019	1	0.6%
2020	5	3.2%
2021	15	9.7%
2022	25	16.1%
2023	25	16.1%
2024	38	24.5%
2025partial year	36	23.2%

Which technologies does Bnsf Railway Company patent most?

B61L - Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic 82

B61K - Auxiliary Equipment Specially Adapted FOR Railways, NOT Otherwise Provided FOR 27

G06F - Electric Digital Data Processing 27

G06T - Image Data Processing OR Generation, IN General 25

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 23

G01S - Radio DIRECTION-FINDING; Radio NAVIGATION; Determining Distance OR Velocity BY USE OF Radio WAVES; Locating OR Presence-detecting BY USE OF THE Reflection OR Reradiation OF Radio WAVES; Analogous Arrangements Using Other Waves 15

G06V - Image OR Video Recognition OR Understanding 14

B60T - Vehicle Brake Control Systems OR Parts THEREOF; Brake Control Systems OR Parts Thereof, IN General ; Arrangement OF Braking Elements ON Vehicles IN GENERAL; Portable Devices FOR Preventing Unwanted Movement OF VEHICLES; Vehicle Modifications TO Facilitate Cooling OF Brakes 11

G06N - Computing Arrangements Based ON Specific Computational Models 11

H04W - Wireless Communication Networks 9

H04N - Pictorial Communication, e.g. Television 9

G01P - Measuring Linear OR Angular Speed, Acceleration, Deceleration, OR SHOCK; Indicating Presence, Absence, OR Direction, OF Movement 8

Y10T - Technical Subjects Covered BY Former US Classification 8

G01M - Testing Static OR Dynamic Balance OF Machines OR STRUCTURES; Testing OF Structures OR Apparatus, NOT Otherwise Provided FOR 7

B61C - LOCOMOTIVES; Motor Railcars 7

Top 15 of 57 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

Bnsf Railway Company's patent record in context - here's where to go next.

Bnsf Railway Company's lead technology class is B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic), 52.9% of its portfolio - see every assignee active in that class. Explore B61L
Ranked #2,511 of 49,997 tracked assignees by patent volume - see the full leaderboard. See the ranking
Compare Bnsf Railway Company against Streamlight, Inc., an assignee filing at a similar volume. Compare portfolios
Innovation Score of 73.8/100 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.