One assignee leads the ranked field with 15 of the 85 records in scope, noticeably ahead of the fifth-placed assignee at 9 and the tenth at 3. That drop-off pattern — one dominant filer, then a steep decline — means the field is not evenly contested; a company benchmarking against ‘the market leader’ in DIA patenting is really benchmarking against a single instrument-making assignee. The top five together hold 67.1% of all records, so competitive analysis should focus there first.

Filings peaked in 2017 at 14 in a year, and the last three-year span that can be treated as complete shows a drop from 7 filings in 2021 to 2 in 2024 — a 71% decline. Data for 2025 and 2026 is still incomplete because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so it would be premature to call the field dead; the honest read is that filing volume has cooled markedly since its 2017 peak, and the very latest trend is not yet visible.

Most records — 65.9% of the 85 in scope — carry a G01N classification, covering material analysis and testing methods, which lines up with DIA’s core function of extracting quantitative signal from complex mass spectra. A substantial minority, 28.2%, also touch H01J, electron and discharge tube technology, meaning hybrid mass spectrometer hardware is a real part of the claim landscape, not just an afterthought. Smaller shares touch medicinal preparations (A61K, 16.5%), genetic engineering (C12N, 15.3%) and peptide/protein chemistry (C07K, 11.8%), reflecting the applied, clinically-adjacent uses these methods are often patented for.