Electronic Skin Patent Landscape 2026
Electronic Skin Patent Landscape in 2026
California Institute of Technology leads a moderately concentrated field, holding the top position among all filers, with the United States as the dominant filing jurisdiction. Activity reached a peak in 2023 and has since plateaued, signalling a field entering maturity rather than accelerating growth.
Caltech leads a moderately concentrated field anchored in the United States
California Institute of Technology holds the top position in this landscape, followed by Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and BOE Technology Group. The top five filers collectively account for one-third of the hundred largest filers’ combined patent records, indicating moderate but not extreme concentration.
A visible tier gap separates the leader — with 16 patent records — from the second-ranked Johnson & Johnson Vision Care at 11 and BOE Technology Group at 8. Below that, several players cluster between four and seven records, forming a competitive mid-tier that includes Agama X, Microsoft Technology Licensing, and Nokia Technologies.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California Institute of Technology | 16 | |
| 2 | JOHNSON & JOHNSON VISION CARE INC | 11 | |
| 3 | BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | 8 | |
| 4 | Agama X Co Ltd | 7 | |
| 5 | Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | 7 | |
| 6 | Nokia Technologies Oy | 5 | |
| 7 | Purdue Research Foundation | 4 | |
| 8 | Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation | 4 | |
| 9 | Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd | 4 | |
| 10 | Mouradian Gary C | 3 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Lookout Inc | 3 | |
| 12 | Sun Yat-sen University | 2 | |
| 13 | Industrial Technology Research Institute | 2 | |
| 14 | Apple Inc | 2 | |
| 15 | Roway Intelligent Technology (Suzhou) Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 16 | Xuzhou Aolake Electronic Technology Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 17 | Jackson Shannon P | 2 | |
| 18 | Intel Corporation | 2 | |
| 19 | Zhejiang Sci-Tech University | 2 | |
| 20 | HUAZHONG UNIV OF SCI & TECH | 2 |
Caltech’s dominant position, combined with its breadth across sensing, data processing, and measuring sub-classes, suggests a research-institution-led field where commercial players have not yet consolidated control. This leaves room for focused entrants to establish defensible positions in specific application areas.
The most recent 18–24 months of filing data are subject to publication lag and likely under-represent true activity; readers should treat 2024–2026 figures as provisional. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing volume peaked in 2023; technology mix spans sensing, diagnostics, and AI
The annual trend and IPC composition charts together reveal a field that built momentum from 2017 onward, crested in 2023, and now shows signs of plateauing. The technology mix is broad, with digital data processing dominating but medical diagnostics, audio transducers, and AI computing all materially represented.
Annual filing trend
Filings rose from 11 records in 2017, dipped mid-decade, then surged to 15 in 2023 — the highest single-year count in the dataset. The 2024 and 2025 figures appear low but are likely understated due to publication lag and should not be read as a sustained decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
G06F (electric digital data processing) is the dominant IPC class, reflecting the heavy software and signal-processing layer in electronic skin systems. A61B (diagnosis and surgery) and H04R (loudspeakers and audio transducers) are the next largest branches, showing that wearable health monitoring and acoustic sensing are material sub-themes alongside the core computing infrastructure.
↗ 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.
Coupling an electronic skin tattoo to a mobile com…
A system and method provides auxiliary voice input to a mobile communication device (MCD). The system comprises an electronic skin tattoo capable of being applied to a throat region of a body. The electronic skin tattoo can include an embedded microphone; a transceiver for enabling wireless communication with the MCD; and a power supply configured to… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customized skin care and method to provide same | 125 |
| 2 | Multi-sensor patch and system | 112 |
| 3 | Data processing method and system utilizing parall… | 68 |
| 4 | Sensor web | 57 |
| 5 | Sensor web | 53 |
| 6 | Electronic skin patch for real time monitoring of … | 38 |
| 7 | 一种皮肤影像分析管理系统 | 34 |
| 8 | Multi-modal field-programmable metamorphic sensor … | 29 |
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.
What the structure means for R&D investment decisions
The combination of a maturing lifecycle, moderate concentration, and a broad IPC spread creates a landscape where specialised entrants can still find defensible positions — particularly in under-indexed technical branches.
Field approaching maturity after 2023 peak
Annual filing volume has plateaued near its 2023 peak, placing the field at the Maturity stage. On a multi-year basis activity remains above earlier lows, but the era of rapid year-on-year growth appears to have passed. New entrants should expect established IP positions in core sensing and data-processing sub-classes and plan accordingly.
Lifecycle: MaturityModerate concentration with an active mid-tier
The top five filers hold 33% of the hundred largest filers’ combined patent records — notable but not dominant. A gap between the leader (16 records) and the mid-tier (four to eight records each) exists, yet the mid-tier is active enough that a new focused programme could realistically achieve top-ten standing within a few filing cycles.
Moderate concentrationBOE Technology Group drives the only observed co-filing network
The most active co-filing relationships are between BOE Technology Group and its affiliates: BOE Technology Group co-filed with Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology (4 joint records), Hefei Xinsheng Optoelectronics Technology (2 records), and Beijing BOE Technology Development (1 record). No cross-organisation collaboration between unaffiliated entities is evident in the evidence, suggesting the ecosystem is not yet broadly collaborative.
Intra-group co-filingUS-centric filing with China as the second jurisdiction
The United States accounts for 63 patent records — by far the largest single jurisdiction — followed by China at 33 and Europe (EPO) at 16. PCT filings total 9 records, indicating limited but existing international protection strategies. Japan, Australia, and Singapore each show 3 records, suggesting selective secondary coverage rather than broad multi-jurisdiction campaigns.
US-dominantGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd | 4 |
| BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | Hefei Xinsheng Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd | 2 |
| BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | Beijing BOE Technology Development Co Ltd | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Caltech anchors the field; Johnson & Johnson Vision Care leads in diagnostics
The top two players differ sharply in orientation: Caltech is a broad research institution spanning sensing, measurement, and data processing, while Johnson & Johnson Vision Care focuses tightly on diagnostic and wireless health monitoring applications.
California Institute of Technology
Caltech holds 16 patent records — the largest position in the landscape — with technology emphasis spanning A47J (kitchen and cooking utensils, likely proxy for soft-material fabrication), G01D (general measurement and recording), and G06F (digital data processing). Momentum trend is flagged as a new entrant in the recent window, which reflects recent filing activity from a small prior base rather than a long filing history in this corpus.
families: 16Johnson & Johnson Vision Care
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care holds 11 patent records, concentrated in A61B (diagnosis and surgery) and H04W (wireless communication networks), with G06F as a supporting class. This positions the company firmly in the wearable medical monitoring segment. Its record count places it as the closest challenger to Caltech, with a meaningful gap to the third-ranked BOE Technology Group at 8 records.
families: 11| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| California Institute of Technology | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Agama X Co Ltd | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| Purdue Research Foundation | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches in audio transduction, general measurement, and AI
Several IPC classes appear in the corpus at lower share levels relative to the dominant G06F class, suggesting areas where patent density is lighter and technically adjacent work is being done by relatively few filers.
H04R · Loudspeakers & audio transducers
H04R accounts for 32 patent records at a 7% share of IPC tags — the largest of the under-indexed branches. Acoustic sensing and haptic feedback are technically complementary to electronic skin’s pressure and tactile sensing functions. Purdue Research Foundation and Dolby Laboratories are among the few filers active here, leaving room for entrants with piezoelectric or flexible acoustic transducer expertise to build a differentiated position.
Search this in Eureka →G06N · Computing based on AI models
G06N (AI computing models) appears at 19 patent records and a 4% share, despite AI-driven signal interpretation being a natural fit for multi-sensor electronic skin data streams. Current activity is sparse relative to the G06F computing base, and no single filer dominates this sub-class in the corpus. Teams that can combine flexible sensor hardware with on-device or edge AI inference architectures may find this an accessible adjacent space.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology route
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | A61B 5 · Diagnosis & surgery | G06F 19 · Electric digital data processing | G06F 1 · Electric digital data processing | G06F 3 · Electric digital data processing | G06F 18 · Electric digital data processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California Institute of Technology | Absent | Strong · 14 | Emerging · 2 | Emerging · 2 | Absent |
| Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc | Strong · 10 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | Absent | Absent | Strong · 7 | Strong · 7 | Absent |
| BOE Technology Group Co Ltd | Strong · 5 | Absent | Strong · 5 | Absent | Absent |
| Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd | Strong · 4 | Absent | Strong · 4 | Absent | Absent |
| Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation | Strong · 4 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 4 | Absent |
| Nokia Technologies Oy | Absent | Absent | Strong · 4 | Strong · 4 | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 82 patent families. Applicant rankings within this report are based on patent records, which can differ from family counts because a single family may generate multiple records across jurisdictions.
California Institute of Technology is the top-ranked filer with 16 patent records, ahead of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care at 11 and BOE Technology Group at 8.
The United States leads with 63 patent records, followed by China at 33 and Europe (EPO) at 16. The US-centric concentration reflects where the leading research institutions and technology companies are based.
Filing volume peaked in 2023 at 15 records for that year and has since plateaued. The field is assessed as reaching Maturity. The most recent 18–24 months are subject to publication lag, so apparent declines in 2024–2025 should not be interpreted as a confirmed downturn.
G06F (electric digital data processing) is by far the most frequent IPC class, followed by A61B (diagnosis and surgery), H04R (loudspeakers and audio transducers), G01D (general measurement and recording), and G06N (AI computing models).
H04R (acoustic and haptic transduction), G01D (general measurement and recording), G06K (data recognition and presentation), G06N (AI models), and H04W (wireless communication networks) each appear at lower share levels relative to the dominant G06F class, indicating lighter patent density in those branches.
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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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