Color Filter and Microlens Processing Patents
Concentrated but not locked up. the top 5 assignees hold 34.0% of all 1,405 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 47.3% — leaving well over half the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Filings ran from 66 in 2017 to a peak of 102 in 2018, then held in a high band before climbing again through the last complete year: 2021's 70 filings rose to 101 by 2024, a 44% increase. The 2025-26 figures are undercounted because of publication lag and should not be read against the earlier years.
- 1SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD133
- 2OMNIVISION TECHNOLOGIES INC104
- 3FOTONATION LIMITED100
- 4INVISAGE TECHNOLOGIES INC89
- 5ETHICON INC51
See the full color filter and microlens processing 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in color filter array and microlens processing?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 133 records, well ahead of the fifth-place company at 51 and tenth place at 32. The top 5 assignees combined account for 34.0% of all 1,405 records in scope, and the top 10 combined account for 47.3%. That still leaves more than half the field distributed across a long tail of companies with far fewer filings each, so leadership here is real but not close to a monopoly on the claim space.
Is filing activity in color filter and microlens patents growing or slowing?
Filings grew 44% from 70 in 2021 to 101 in 2024, which is the last year in this dataset that can be treated as complete. Earlier activity peaked at 102 in 2018 before dipping and recovering. The 2025 and 2026 figures look lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, not an actual drop in filing activity — do not read those final years as a slowdown.
What technology areas dominate color filter and microlens patent claims?
H04N, the pictorial communication and video/TV subclass, appears in 61.3% of the 1,405 records and is the single largest category. G02B (optical elements) and H01L (semiconductor devices) each sit close to a third of records, and because records commonly carry multiple IPC classes, most filings span the optics-to-silicon boundary rather than sitting purely in one domain. G06T (image data processing) and A61B (diagnosis and surgery) form smaller but distinct secondary threads.
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 Color Filter and Microlens Processing 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.