3D Vision Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
3D Vision and Structured Light Measurement Patents
28.5% sits with five filers. The top 5 assignees combined hold 246 of 863 records in scope — a concentrated claim position around core phase-shifting and calibration methods. Publications rose from 37 in 2017 to a peak of 83 in 2019, then eased to 30 by 2024 — a -29% move from the 42 recorded in 2021. Treat 2025 and 2026 as undercounted rather than as evidence of continued decline.
- 1SNAP ON INC13.6%
- 2NANJING UNIV OF SCI & TECH5.8%
- 3DENTSPLY SIRONA INC3.4%
- 4MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC3.2%
- 5ALIGN TECHNOLOGY INC2.5%
See the full 3d vision and structured light measurement analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most patents in structured light 3D measurement?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 117 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 22 and the tenth at 15. That gap indicates the leader has built breadth across the measurement pipeline rather than relying on a small cluster of related filings. The top five assignees combined hold 246 of 863 records in scope, about 28.5% of the total, so the field has a genuinely concentrated top tier even though the ranking runs to 100 companies overall.
Is patent filing in 3D vision and structured light measurement slowing down?
The data shows publications falling from a 2019 peak of 83 to 30 in 2024, a -29% move from the 42 recorded in 2021. That is a real cooling in the recent complete years, but it should not be read as the field disappearing: publication normally lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any such dataset are still incomplete and will rise as filings from those years get published. The safest read is that the earlier boom years of rapid growth have passed, not that activity has stopped.
What patent classes cover structured light and fringe projection technology?
The dominant class is G01B, measuring length and dimensions, which covers 59.8% of the 863 records in scope — reflecting that this is fundamentally a dimensional measurement technology. G06T (image data processing) follows at 31.1% and H04N (pictorial communication) at 20.5%, showing heavy overlap with computational imaging. A61B (diagnosis and surgery) appears on 9.4% of records, pointing to meaningful use in medical and dental scanning applications such as intraoral imaging.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on 3D Vision and Structured Light Measurement covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.