Where does Union Pacific Railroad Company rank among US patent assignees?

According to USPTO PatentsView (2015–2025 granted utility patents), Union Pacific Railroad Company ranks #18,242 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 Union Pacific Railroad Company hold?

Union Pacific Railroad Company holds 16 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2024, spanning 19 technology areas.

What is Union Pacific Railroad Company's Innovation Score?

Union Pacific Railroad Company has an Innovation Score of 55.8 out of 100 (top 7% of the corpus). This composite metric weighs portfolio volume (40%), grant velocity (20%), technology breadth (25%), and claim depth (15%).

What technology areas does Union Pacific Railroad Company focus on?

Union Pacific Railroad Company's top technology area is B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic) with 5 patents, ranking #60 of 195 assignees active in that subclass. Grants appear in 19 CPC subclasses total.

Is Union Pacific Railroad Company's patent grant rate increasing or decreasing?

Union Pacific Railroad Company's recent grant velocity is -40% compared to the prior five-year period (grant years, not application filing dates). Grant activity has slowed relative to earlier years.

What does claim depth mean for Union Pacific Railroad Company's patents?

Union Pacific Railroad Company's patents average 23.3 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 Union Pacific Railroad 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

Union Pacific Railroad Company

USPTO PatentsView assignee record - 16 granted patents across 19 technology areas, recorded in grant years 2015–2024. 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, Union ranks #18,242 of 49,997 tracked US assignees by granted-patent volume, with 16 patents across 19 technology areas.

#18,242
of 49,997 US assignees by volume: Top 7%
by Innovation Score (55.8/100): 23.3
avg claims per patent: -40%
grant velocity, last 5 yrs

USPTO PatentsView assignee plate

Corpus R18242 · US Corporation #18,242 · 16 grants

GRANTS-MICRO · MID-PACK · PHOTO-FINISH · CPC-FOCUS · INNOV-PAR · CLAIMS-DENSE · TYPE-USCORP · VEL-DOWN · BOOK-FULL

GRANTS-MICRO 16 grants
MID-PACK #18,242/49,997
PHOTO-FINISH Ujet
CPC-FOCUS B61L · 19 areas
INNOV-PAR 55.8/100
CLAIMS-DENSE 23.3 claims/avg
TYPE-USCORP US Corporation
VEL-DOWN -40% vel
BOOK-FULL 10/10 fields

Nearest grant-volume peer: Ujet, 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 Union’s 55.8 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 9.8 pts (18%) Velocity 16.7 pts (30%) Breadth 15.4 pts (28%) Claim depth 14.0 pts (25%)

Qualcomm Incorporated · highest

85
Union Pacific Railroad · this assignee

56
3D Lighting… · lowest

7

What this shows Union's Innovation Score is 55.8/100 (top 7% 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 Union?

Each dot is one of Union’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). Union’s own 23.3 claims/patent is ABOVE the 15.0 median for these volume peers. More thorough claims than most filers at this scale, not just more of them.

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

Where Union's grants concentrate

Union Pacific Railroad Company is a focused PatentsView assignee: 19 CPC subclasses with 31.3% of grants classified under B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic). Peak complete grant year is 2015 (4 grants) versus a trough of 1 in 2016. By volume, Union sits between Ujet, Inc. and UNIVERSITÀ Degli Studi DI Cagliari.

Union's three-year grant acceleration

Union Pacific Railroad Company shows 5 grants in 2022–2024 against only 2 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.

Ujet

16
ULIS

16
UMG ABS

16
Unikey

16
Unipres

16
Universidad Compl…

16
Universite DE Dro…

16
UniversitÀ Degli…

16
Union Pacific Rai… ◀

16

What this shows Union holds 16 patents at rank #18,236, shown against the 8 assignees closest to it in grant volume rather than the industry's largest filers.

Companies ranked near Union

By rank, the assignees closest to #18,236 in granted patent volume.

Leaders in B61L (Guiding Railway Traffic)

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

Union's Innovation Score vs. every tracked assignee

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

56 Top 7% higher than 93% 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 · 2015–2024

Grants by year

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

View data table

Union Pacific Railroad Company patent grants by year, 2015–2025
Year	Patents Granted	Share of Period
2015	4	25.0%
2016	1	6.3%
2017	4	25.0%
2019	1	6.3%
2021	1	6.3%
2022	2	12.5%
2023	1	6.3%
2024	2	12.5%

Which technologies does Union Pacific Railroad Company patent most?

B61L - Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic 5

B61D - Body Details OR Kinds OF Railway Vehicles 4

Y02T - Climate Change Mitigation Technologies Related TO Transportation 4

E01B - Permanent WAY; Permanent-way TOOLS; Machines FOR Making Railways OF ALL Kinds 3

Y10T - Technical Subjects Covered BY Former US Classification 3

B61C - LOCOMOTIVES; Motor Railcars 3

B60L - Propulsion OF Electrically-propelled Vehicles ; Supplying Electric Power FOR Auxiliary Equipment OF Electrically-propelled Vehicles ; Electrodynamic Brake Systems FOR Vehicles IN General ; Magnetic Suspension OR Levitation FOR VEHICLES; Monitoring Operating Variables OF Electrically-propelled Vehicl 2

F24F - AIR-CONDITIONING; AIR-HUMIDIFICATION; VENTILATION; USE OF AIR Currents FOR Screening 1

B60H - Arrangements OF Heating, Cooling, Ventilating OR Other Air-treating Devices Specially Adapted FOR Passenger OR Goods Spaces OF Vehicles 1

F16L - PIPES; Joints OR Fittings FOR PIPES; Supports FOR Pipes, Cables OR Protective TUBING; Means FOR Thermal Insulation IN General 1

F17D - Pipe-line SYSTEMS; Pipe-lines 1

B61K - Auxiliary Equipment Specially Adapted FOR Railways, NOT Otherwise Provided FOR 1

E05B - LOCKS; Accessories THEREFOR; Handcuffs 1

G08G - Traffic Control Systems 1

G06F - Electric Digital Data Processing 1

Top 15 of 19 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

Union Pacific Railroad Company's patent record in context - here's where to go next.

Union Pacific Railroad Company's lead technology class is B61L (Guiding Railway TRAFFIC; Ensuring THE Safety OF Railway Traffic), 31.3% of its portfolio - see every assignee active in that class. Explore B61L
Ranked #18,242 of 49,997 tracked assignees by patent volume - see the full leaderboard. See the ranking
Compare Union Pacific Railroad Company against Ujet, Inc., an assignee filing at a similar volume. Compare portfolios
Innovation Score of 55.8/100 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.