Digital Isolator Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees combined account for 72.7% of the 22 records in scope, with a single leader holding 4 records against a tenth-place filer at just 1.
- Filing has cooled since 2018. Activity peaked at 3 records in 2018; the 2022 midpoint sits at only 2, and momentum among the tracked assignees has flattened, with several leaders logging zero filings in the most recent year.
- Semiconductor-device claims dominate. H01L covers 59.1% of records, well ahead of pulse-technique (H03K) and transmission (H04B) classes at 40.9% each, pointing to where barrier-construction claims are concentrated.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families and published applications addressing digital isolators, optocouplers and galvanic isolation devices, filtered to documents whose claims touch common-mode transient immunity, isolation voltage rating, propagation delay, barrier aging or the choice between capacitive and magnetic coupling. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off and is limited to IPC classes H01L31, H03K17 and H01L23, so it captures semiconductor-integrated isolation barriers rather than the older photo-optocoupler package art broadly.
Twenty-two records is a small, specialised corpus by design: it isolates the subset of isolator patents that make explicit performance claims about the barrier itself, rather than every patent that merely mentions an optocoupler in passing. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2026 figure of zero is an artefact of that lag, not evidence that filing has stopped.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 22-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 3 in 2018, held at 2 through the 2022 midpoint, and have not exceeded that level since — a flat-to-declining pattern rather than a growth curve. The final one or two years will revise upward as publications catch up with filing dates.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) appears in 59.1% of the 22 records, the single most common classification. H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) and H04B (transmission, general) each cover 40.9%, reflecting that isolator patents typically claim both the physical barrier and the signalling circuitry around it. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 22 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Digital Isolators and Optocouplers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about digital isolators and optocouplers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Galvanic Isolation Device (US20180269272A1)
The filing describes a capacitive isolation barrier built directly into an integrated-circuit stack: a first IC die carries communication circuitry beneath its top surface, connected to a conductive plate that a dielectric layer then covers after fabrication. A second conductive plate sits opposite the first, separated only by that dielectric layer, forming an on-die capacitor that carries the signal across the isolation boundary.Filed by Texas Instruments; published 2018-09-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130181232A1 | Optocoupler with Surface Functional Coating Layer | 32 |
| 2 | US20180269272A1 | Galvanic Isolation Device | 13 |
| 3 | US20190081133A1 | Galvanic isolation device | 7 |
| 4 | US10121847B2 | Galvanic isolation device | 5 |
| 5 | US20230084169A1 | Dual circuit digital isolator | 4 |
| 6 | US11515246B2 | Dual circuit digital isolator | 4 |
| 7 | CN108735853A | 光耦合器 | 4 |
| 8 | US20130168553A1 | Thermally-Sensitive Optocoupler | 2 |
| 9 | WO2011090853A1 | Optocoupler circuit for gate driver | 2 |
| 10 | US10425045B2 | Input protection circuit for an analog optocoupler | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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A short leaderboard, not a crowded field
With the leading assignee at 4 records and the tenth-ranked filer at just 1, this is a field where a handful of established semiconductor and industrial-controls firms hold most of the documented claim space, and a long tail files once or twice and stops.
Filing has not accelerated since its peak
Activity peaked at 3 records in 2018 and sat at 2 by the 2022 midpoint. Several of the ranked assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year, which reads as consolidation of existing barrier designs rather than a new wave of claims.
The physical barrier is the busiest claim territory
H01L (semiconductor devices) outranks both H03K (pulse technique) and H04B (transmission) as a classification, meaning more of the claim activity sits on how the barrier itself is built than on the surrounding drive or receive circuitry.
US filing dominates this corpus
The United States accounts for the largest share of receiving-office filings, with Europe, the UK, Taiwan, China and Germany making up the remainder in single digits each — a filing footprint centred on the US market with modest EPO and Asian coverage.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to digital isolators and optocouplers, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
Ten assignees make up the full ranking this dataset returns — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the complete list of companies with records in scope.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 4 of the 22 records in scope, roughly a fifth of the whole corpus on its own, ahead of a cluster of firms filing 2 or fewer.
Most of the ranking files once or twice
Below the top five, filing counts drop quickly to single records, consistent with firms taking out defensive or opportunistic filings around a specific isolation-barrier design rather than building a sustained portfolio.
The ranked leaders have gone quiet recently
Every assignee for which year-on-year momentum data is available shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, including a -100% swing for one mid-ranked filer, though the 18-month publication lag means recent activity is likely underrepresented here.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Allegro MicroSystems, LLC | 0 | — |
| Johnson Controls Technology Company | 0 | — |
| Texas Instruments Incorporated | 0 | — |
| Micro Motion, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Amazing Microelectronic Corp. | 0 | -100% |
| Siemens AG | 0 | — |
| Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Agilent Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated, slow-growing field with specific under-claimed corners. Two directions make sense from here.
Map freedom-to-operate against the leading assignees
With 72.7% of records held by five companies, a freedom-to-operate check should start with those portfolios' specific claim language on barrier construction, not just their patent counts.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the white-space branches for early filings
Barrier aging, hybrid optical-capacitive coupling and amplifier integration each show low record counts here; monitoring new filings in these branches early can flag emerging competitors before they build a portfolio.
Set up monitoring alerts in EurekaCommon questions about digital isolator patents
In this dataset the leading assignee holds 4 of the 22 records in scope, ahead of a cluster of firms filing 2 records each by fifth place. The top five assignees combined account for 72.7% of all records, so ownership is concentrated in a short list of semiconductor and industrial-controls companies rather than spread evenly. Beyond the top ten, filing counts fall to single records, indicating a long tail of one-off filers rather than a broad competitive field.
Filing peaked at 3 records in 2018 and has not exceeded that level since, sitting at 2 records by the 2022 midpoint. Several ranked assignees show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, which reads as a flat-to-declining trend rather than growth. That said, publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the very latest year in any such trend will always look weaker than it eventually turns out to be.
Both coupling approaches appear in the corpus, and the search scope specifically included documents that address the capacitive-versus-magnetic distinction in their claims. The representative filing in this dataset, a Texas Instruments application, claims a capacitive approach: two conductive plates on adjacent IC dies separated by a dielectric layer, forming an on-chip capacitor across the isolation boundary. Reviewing individual records is the only reliable way to tell which coupling method a given patent covers, since IPC classification alone does not separate the two.
H01L, the general semiconductor-devices classification, appears in 59.1% of the 22 records in scope, making it the most common class. H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) and H04B (transmission, general) each cover 40.9% of records, reflecting that isolator patents commonly claim both the barrier structure and the surrounding signal circuitry. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages sum to more than 100% and should not be added together as if they were exclusive categories.
Classes tied to barrier aging and long-term reliability, hybrid optical-capacitive coupling, and amplifier-stage integration show markedly lower record counts than the core H01L and H03K claim territory in this corpus. That does not guarantee the space is legally open, since a small dataset can undercount activity that exists in adjacent, differently classified filings. It does mean these branches deserve a closer freedom-to-operate look before assuming either an opening or a block.
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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.