Fortinet is Leading Innovation in the Security Industry with More Than 1,500 Patents

At Fortinet, innovation lies at the heart of everything we do. As a security engineering company founded and led by engineers, we understand that the threat landscape changes fast and that security companies must innovate even faster to protect their customers. Fortinet has a proven track record of innovating the best security products on the market, reflected in our unparalleled number of current and pending patents. It is that focus and execution to deliver ongoing value to our customers that is our biggest competitive advantage.

Founded in 2000, Fortinet now boasts the most extensive portfolio of network security technologies in the world. Most of this technology has been built from the ground up, and if not, it has been fully integrated into the Fortinet Security Fabric—something most other organizations struggle to achieve. Fortinet spearheaded the doctrine that a broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity mesh platform is essential to reducing complexity and increasing overall security effectiveness across today’s expanding networks. Indeed, Fortinet is the leading innovator in cybersecurity. 

Fortinet Patent and Technology Leadership in the Security Industry

Our innovations are rooted in over 20 years of prioritizing research and development in our company culture. That commitment is reflected in our expansive patent portfolio. With 1,250 awarded patents and another 251 pending, Fortinet not only boasts more patented technology in the industry but more than most of our competitors combined.

Fortinet delivers high-performance network security solutions that protect networks, users, and data worldwide from today’s continually evolving threats. Our broad portfolio of top-rated solutions and centralized management enables security consolidation and delivers a simplified, end-to-end security infrastructure.

Fortinet has broadly patented all the fundamental elements of modern-day network security. This includes the convergence of networking and security, endpoint protection, SD-WAN, ZTNA, NAC, switches, SASE, and other aspects of the Fortinet Security fabric platform.

How Fortinet’s Patents Enable Advanced Security Technologies

At the core of this innovation is FortiOS, a unique operating system designed to run in any form factor and support Fortinet’s expansive portfolio of technologies through a single, integrated platform. It is the heart of the Security Fabric, allowing Fortinet technologies to operate as a unified system regardless of where they are deployed—sharing data, correlating information, and enabling a fully automated and coordinated response to threats. It also powers our unique central management system, providing IT managers with an expansive view across the entire distributed network. This helps ensure that configurations are consistent, threat events are recognized, and policies are enforced consistently—even across multi-cloud environments. Its expansive set of open APIs also allows it to integrate with our more than 450 Fabric-ready partners.

Undergirding that is the industry’s only portfolio of custom security and networking ASICs—custom processors with 62 issued and pending patents that allow us to provide, dollar for dollar, the fastest and most accurate security in the industry. These ASICs power our FortiGate security platform. Our Next-Generation Firewall, IPS, VPN, and AV technologies boast 279 patents, awarded and pending, the most for those technologies in the industry. We also have 103 issued and pending patents around things like machine learning (ML), web access, sandboxing, email, and SASE, as well as 36 separate issued and pending patents just for our advanced DDoS detection and remediation.

Security-Driven Networking Solutions

But our innovation extends well beyond our Next-Gen Firewall and ASIC technologies. It may surprise you to learn that we have 537 patents, issued and pending, covering LAN switching and WAN technologies and another 155 issued and pending patents around secure wireless technology. Unlike most networking gear, tools like FortiSwitch and FortiAP provide not only advanced connectivity, access, routing, and switching technologies (many of which we have patented) but also the industry’s most robust set of integrated security capabilities. It’s part of the reason why Fortinet was recently recognized as a Leader, placed highest for Ability to Execute, in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for WAN Edge Infrastructure.

We also have 47 patents that have either been awarded or pending tied to Secure SD-WAN, a critical connectivity solution for today’s next-generation branch offices. These innovations contributed to our being named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for WAN Edge Infrastructure for the second year in a row, placing highest for ability to execute for our Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution.

These security-driven networking solutions are essential for organizations building a security-first or zero-trust networking strategy, which is increasingly critical for today’s highly distributed and dynamic network environments.

Powerful Analytics

But a secure network must be more than just the sum of its parts. Gathering, correlating, detecting, and responding to today’s sophisticated threats requires advanced systems capable of processing and sifting through mountains of raw data. These capabilities are core to the efficiency and effectiveness of the Fortinet Security Fabric, and we have an industry-leading 110 patents, both issued and pending, related to Security Analytics, FortiSIEM/FortiSOAR technologies, and FortiNAC (network access control) designed to detect and thwart threats before they can impact your network and data.

Securing the Endpoint and Cloud with Fortinet

We are also much more than a network-centric organization. We have 72 awarded and pending patents around advanced edge security technologies, including the industry’s most advanced endpoint detection and response solution (FortiEDR). Another 66 issued and pending patents related to cloud services, including our ability to deliver cloud-based protection for mobile and remote workers, such as FortiCASB, as well as our ability to translate policies between different cloud platforms on the fly to ensure the consistent safety and security for data and workflows that move between cloud environments. We have 34 patents, both awarded and pending, just around application delivery controllers (FortiADC) and server load balancers.

Innovation is a Fortinet Core Value

By any standards, it’s an impressive list. It bears testament to our ongoing commitment to providing our customers with the best protection, and best value, in the industry. That’s because our goal isn’t just to be the best security vendor in the world. It is to ensure that our customers and partners can safely and effectively compete in today’s accelerating digital marketplace.

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner, Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure, Jonathan Forest, Naresh Singh, Andrew Lerner, Evan Zeng, 20 September 2021.

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure, By Mike Toussaint, Christian Canales, Tim Zimmerman, 16 November 2021.