Crop Phenotyping Precision Agriculture Patent Snapshot
This is a highly concentrated, nascent corpus with 24 patent families dominated by two applicants — Agri Victoria Services and KWS SAAT — who together account for the large majority of activity. Filing has been intermittent rather than sustained, signalling an early-stage field where a small number of well-targeted filings can establish meaningful positional advantage.
Two organizations lead a highly concentrated nascent field
Agri Victoria Services Pty Ltd and KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA sit in a commanding tier-one position, together representing the vast majority of the ranked corpus. No other single applicant comes close to their volume, making this one of the most top-heavy competitive structures observable in an agricultural-technology corpus of this size.
The top five filers account for 70% of the ranked applicants visible in this query’ combined total, an extreme concentration level. Beyond the top two, every remaining applicant holds a single patent record, producing a sharp cliff between the leaders and a long tail of one-off individual inventors and academic filers.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agri Victoria Services Pty Ltd | 10 | |
| 2 | KWS SAAT SE & CO KGAA | 9 | |
| 3 | DEERE & CO | 2 | |
| 4 | SAYALI PRAKASH SHINDE | 1 | |
| 5 | DR ARVIND KUMAR TRIPATHI | 1 | |
| 6 | DR POOJA KARKI | 1 | |
| 7 | DR ABHA THAKUR | 1 | |
| 8 | DR STUTI PATHAK | 1 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Vishwakarma Institute of Technology | 1 | |
| 10 | DR KULDEEP KUMAR | 1 | |
| 11 | DR SONALI SHARMA | 1 | |
| 12 | DR JYOTI SHARMA | 1 | |
| 13 | Mineral Earth Sciences LLC | 1 | |
| 14 | DR SHIVANI SHARMA | 1 | |
| 15 | MS GURVINDER KAUR | 1 |
The leaders’ positions imply that any new entrant seeking relevance in this space must either differentiate by technology route — particularly in branches the leaders have not emphasized — or pursue collaborative pathways with the academic inventors who populate the long tail.
Note that filings from the most recent 18–24 months are typically under-counted due to publication lag, so the apparent low volume in 2024–2025 should not be read as a decline. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Intermittent filing pattern with material science and imaging at the core
The filing trend and technology composition charts together reveal a field that has seen concentrated bursts of activity rather than steady growth, anchored by optical analysis and image-recognition methods.
Annual filing trend
Activity peaked in 2022 with the single largest annual cohort on record, bookended by a modest 2017–2018 cluster and near silence in 2019–2021. Years 2024–2025 show only one record each, consistent with the expected publication lag for recently filed applications; the apparent quietening should not be interpreted as a real decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
Material analysis and testing (G01N) and image/video recognition (G06V) are jointly the leading branches, followed closely by soil-working agriculture (A01B) and horticulture and forestry (A01G). Image data processing (G06T) and bioinformatics (G16B) round out the upper tier. Drone-related branches (B64C, B64D) and AI-model computing (G06N) are present but sparse, indicating room for integration of autonomous sensing and machine-learning approaches.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Method and system for performing data analysis for…
The invention relates to a method for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping of single plants in a field and a data acquisition and evaluation system for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping of single plants in a field. Further, the invention relates to a mobile platform for use in the data acquisition and evaluation system. The method… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plant phenotyping techniques using mechanical mani… | 16 |
| 2 | Method and system for performing data analysis for… | 16 |
| 3 | Systems and Methods for Automated Hyperspectral Ve… | 10 |
| 4 | Systems and methods for automated hyperspectral ve… | 9 |
| 5 | Plant phenotyping techniques using optical measure… | 9 |
| 6 | 用于进行植物表型分型数据分析的方法和系统 | 5 |
| 7 | System and method/process for in-field measurement… | 3 |
| 8 | Method and system for performing data analysis for… | 3 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Agri Victoria Services Pty Ltd
Agri Victoria Services holds 10 patent records — the highest count in the corpus — and entered as a new entrant with all activity concentrated in the recent window. Its technical focus is anchored in optical material analysis (G01N 21) and image/video recognition (G06V 20, G06V 10), indicating a sensor-plus-vision strategy for in-field phenotyping. The new-entrant trajectory combined with immediate volume leadership signals a deliberate and rapid IP build-out rather than incremental expansion.
patent records: 10KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA
KWS SAAT holds 9 patent records and is the closest rival to Agri Victoria. Its emphasis falls on soil-working agronomy methods (A01B 79), field-level image recognition (G06V 20), and data recognition (G06K 9), reflecting a more agronomic and data-management orientation compared to Agri Victoria’s sensing-first approach. Momentum data places KWS SAAT outside the tracked new-entrant cohort, suggesting a more established filing history in adjacent areas that feeds into this corpus.
patent records: 9Frequently asked questions
The current corpus contains 24 patent families. This is a small corpus indicative of an early-stage, specialist field rather than a mature technology area.
Agri Victoria Services Pty Ltd leads with 10 patent records, followed closely by KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA with 9. All remaining applicants hold a single record each, producing a sharp two-tier structure.
Europe (EPO) is the leading jurisdiction with 8 patent records, followed by the United States with 5, Australia with 3, and WIPO (PCT) with 3. Coverage in major Asian crop markets is thin — China holds 1 record and India 2.
Material analysis and testing (G01N) and image/video recognition (G06V) are the two leading branches, each with 11 records. Soil-working agriculture (A01B) and horticulture and forestry (A01G) follow with 10 records each, and image data processing (G06T) adds 9 more.
No co-applicant filings are recorded in the current corpus. A cluster of individual academic inventors affiliated with institutions such as Vishwakarma Institute of Technology is present, but no formal co-assigned patents appear, suggesting that industry-academia collaboration agreements have not yet translated into joint filings.
The sparsest adjacent branches are radar and positioning (G01S, 4 records), drone platforms (B64C, 2 records), and AI-model computing (G06N, 1 record). Bioinformatics (G16B) has 6 records but is also underweighted relative to the visible sensing and imaging classes. None of the top two applicants lists these branches as primary filing areas, so new entrants would face limited direct incumbent overlap.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from PatSnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
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