Crop Phenotyping System Efficiency Enhancement Patent Landscape 2026
- Filing activity has already peaked. 2022 recorded 10 of the 17 families in this corpus; nothing since has approached that level, and the most recent years are still filling in behind the publication lag.
- Imaging and material analysis dominate, not agronomy. G01N and G06V each carry 11 of the 17 records — the claim pressure sits on sensing and recognition pipelines, not on the horticulture-specific A01G class, which trails at 5.
- Filing is concentrated in Europe, not where the crops are grown. The EPO alone receives 6 of the filings, ahead of Australia and the United States at 3 each — unusual for an agriculture technology dataset this size.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families addressing efficiency gains in high-throughput crop and plant phenotyping systems — the imaging, data-pipeline and sensor-fusion work that determines how fast a phenotyping platform can move from field capture to usable trait data. The search combines phenotyping-specific title/abstract language with IPC coverage across material analysis (G01N), image recognition (G06V) and bioinformatics (G16B), so it captures the computational and sensing layer rather than plant biology itself.
With only 17 published families, this is a narrow, still-forming field rather than a mature one. Filing activity is recent enough that the newest years are structurally undercounted: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as backlog clears.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 17 families: how filing volume has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were flat at zero through the early years of the window, rose to a peak of 10 in 2022, and have not sustained that level since — a pattern consistent with a short burst of platform-building activity rather than a steadily growing field. Because 2022 is the midpoint of the observed range and already the high point, the trend reads as flat-to-declining rather than growing.
IPC subclass composition
G01N (material analysis & testing) and G06V (image/video recognition) each account for 11 of the 17 records, making sensing and recognition the two busiest claim areas. G16B (bioinformatics) follows at 8, with A01G (horticulture-specific hardware), A01B, G01B, G01S and G06T each in the 4–5 range — a signal that efficiency gains are being claimed mostly at the data-processing layer, with comparatively thin coverage of the field hardware and positioning side.
Shares are the percentage of the 17 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Crop Phenotyping System Efficiency Enhancement with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about crop phenotyping system efficiency enhancement and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this corpus
Method and system for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping
Covers a mobile data acquisition and evaluation system for single-plant phenotyping in the field: a hyperspectral imaging sensor, an image sensor and an inertial measurement unit feed georeferenced spectral and image data, which is spatialized into a digital surface model to support per-plant trait analysis at scale.Filed by KWS SAAT SE & CO. KGAA; granted 2024-10-15.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200294620A1 | Method and system for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping | 23 |
| 2 | US20240096092A1 | Systems and Methods for Automated Hyperspectral Vegetation Index Derivation for High-Throughput Plant Phenoty… | 11 |
| 3 | WO2022160008A1 | Systems and methods for automated hyperspectral vegetation index derivation for high-throughput plant phenoty… | 9 |
| 4 | US12119086B2 | Method and system for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping | 4 |
| 5 | WO2023060299A1 | System and method/process for in-field measurements of plant crops | 3 |
| 6 | EP4285339A1 | Systems and methods for automated hyperspectral vegetation index derivation for high-throughput plant phenoty… | 1 |
| 7 | CA3077713A1 | Method and system for performing data analysis for plant phenotyping | 1 |
Citation counts inside this searched corpus favour older filings and should be read as a signal of influence within this dataset, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three figures worth pausing on before assuming this field behaves like a typical agtech dataset.
A single-year spike, not a growth curve
Half of all published families in this landscape filed in one calendar year. No other year comes close, and the years after 2022 show no sustained follow-through yet — though the publication lag means the most recent years are still understated.
Sensing and recognition, not agronomy hardware
G01N (material analysis) and G06V (image recognition) each carry 11 of the 17 records, while A01G — the horticulture-specific hardware class — trails at 5. The efficiency claims in this field sit on the data pipeline, not the field equipment.
Europe leads filing, not deployment geography
The European Patent Office receives more filings than Australia and the United States combined against each other individually, at 3 apiece. For a field built around outdoor imaging platforms, that concentration in a single receiving office is worth tracking when assessing freedom to operate.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to crop phenotyping system efficiency enhancement, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
With 17 families total, this is not a field with an entrenched leader board — filing is thin enough that recent-year momentum has stalled even for the more active assignees.
Momentum has cooled across the board
Both Victoria Agriculture Services Holdings and KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA show zero filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the field-wide pullback after the 2022 peak rather than a company-specific slowdown.
KWS SAAT holds the most-cited active grant
US12119086B2, assigned to KWS SAAT SE & CO. KGAA, covers a mobile hyperspectral-and-IMU data acquisition system for single-plant phenotyping and sits among the most-cited records in this corpus.
A long tail, not a concentrated field
With only 17 families spread across the assignee ranking, this looks like an early-stage field with a handful of active filers and a long tail of single-filing entrants rather than a consolidated market with clear incumbents.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Victoria Agriculture Services Holdings | 0 | — |
| KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow but active claim space around imaging and data-pipeline efficiency. Two directions are worth pursuing next.
Map the citation cluster around US20200294620A1 and US12119086B2
These two records anchor the most-cited work in this corpus and share overlapping subject matter on plant-phenotyping data analysis. Tracing their citation network in Eureka clarifies how tightly the earliest claims constrain later filers.
Explore citation mapping in Eureka →Track the under-claimed hardware-fusion space
A01G, A01B and G01S each sit well below G01N and G06V in filing volume, suggesting field-hardware and positioning fusion claims remain comparatively open. Monitoring new filings in these subclasses over the next few quarters will show whether that gap is closing.
Set up subclass monitoring in Eureka →Common questions
This landscape identifies 17 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that match the combined search on phenotyping platforms, high-throughput imaging language and the relevant IPC classes. That is a small corpus for a global agriculture technology topic, which indicates the field is still narrow and early-stage rather than mature. Readers should treat the 2025–2026 figures as provisional, since patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The data shows 10 of the 17 total families filing in 2022, the single largest year in the window, with no comparable year before or after. This pattern is more consistent with a short cluster of platform-development projects reaching filing stage together than with steady organic growth. Because 2022 is also roughly the midpoint of the tracked period, the apparent decline afterward should be read cautiously until later years finish publishing.
G01N (material analysis and testing) and G06V (image and video recognition) each cover 11 of the 17 records, making them the two densest classes in this corpus. G16B (bioinformatics) follows at 8, while horticulture-specific hardware under A01G sits at only 5. In practice, this means the busiest claim space is in how sensor data is processed and classified, not in the physical phenotyping hardware itself.
US12119086B2, assigned to KWS SAAT SE & CO. KGAA, claims a specific combination of hyperspectral imaging, image sensing and IMU-based georeferencing spatialized into a digital surface model for single-plant analysis. It does not block phenotyping approaches generally — it blocks that particular sensor-fusion and data-processing combination as claimed. Companies using different sensor combinations, different spatialization methods, or working at plot level rather than single-plant level have room to design around it, though a freedom-to-operate review of the specific claim language is the only reliable way to confirm that for a given product.
The subclass data shows A01G, A01B, G01B and G01S each sitting well below G01N and G06V in filing volume, which points to field-hardware positioning, dimensional measurement and radar/positioning fusion as comparatively under-claimed relative to core imaging and recognition work. A first claim combining in-field positioning fusion with data-pipeline throughput optimisation, rather than another imaging-classification approach, is more likely to find open claim space in this dataset. That said, with only 17 families total, any new filer should still run a full clearance search before assuming a gap is real rather than simply unsearched.
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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.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.