There is no secret that the metaverse concept is on the rise, and with it of course comes investment from various actors in the tech industry. The patents include hardware as well as software solutions that is very closely (heads up displays) or further away (machine learning) from the metaverse concept. But they could all be applied to the metaverse or extended reality.
In 2018 there was around 1000 patents in this category and since then it has more than doubled to over 2000 registered patents. Microsoft registered most of the patents closer to 2018-2019 where other companies like Samsung or Magic Leap have registered more in the later years.
Source: https://www.ificlaims.com/news/view/briefing-metaverse.htm