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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/fiber-optic-communications-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Fiber-Optic CommunicationsFiber-Optic Communications Patents: Who Leads and Where the Field Is Still Open
- Filing peaked in 2020 at 530 records, and 2021-to-2024 volumes are down 44% — a real pullback, not a publication-lag artifact, since 2024 is the last complete year.
- The top 5 assignees hold only 23.7% of all 20,029 records, so despite a clear leader the field has a long tail rather than a tight oligopoly.
- H04B and G02B each touch over 42% of records, while H01L and H04Q sit under 5% — a visible gap between transmission/optics claims and the switching and semiconductor layers around them.
20K
Published Records
24%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-44%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (367 records) with 2024 (205) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 20,029 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 20,029 published records tagged against fiber-optic communications terms — optical waveguides, light emitters, optical receivers, wavelength control — filed or published between 2015 and the 2026-08-31 cut-off. The scope deliberately pairs transmission-system language with device-level optical terms, so it captures both the network-layer patents and the component patents that make fiber links work, rather than just one or the other.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend understate real activity; treat 2024 as the last year safe to read as complete and everything after it as still filling in.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 20,029 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A 2020 peak followed by a real pullback
Annual filings rose to a peak of 530 in 2020, then eased; the 2021-to-2024 window — the last stretch that can be read as complete once publication lag is accounted for — shows a drop from 367 to 205 records, a 44% decline. Readers should not extend that decline through 2025 or 2026: those years are still accumulating publications.
Optics and transmission dominate; switching and semiconductor layers lag
H04B (transmission, general) and G02B (optical elements and systems) each appear on over 42% of the 20,029 records, with H04J (multiplex communication) and G02F (optical control and modulation) both around 17% and H01S (lasers) at 16.3%. H01L (semiconductor devices) and H04Q (switching and selecting) trail at 4.1% and 4.0% respectively — since a record can carry multiple classes, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 20,029 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A representative claim and the most-cited prior art
Representative record
Tunable dispersion compensation device, optical receiver, and optical fiber communication system
MITSUBISHI DENKI KABUSHIKI KAISHA
A tunable dispersion compensation device comprises an optical waveguide having a grating, a plurality of heaters arranged along an optical axis of the optical waveguide, and a pulsed-current supplying unit for producing a desired temperature distribution in the grating by supplying a plurality of pulsed currents to the plurality of heaters, respectively. The grating can be a chirped grating, and the pulsed-current supplying unit can include a pulse width control unit for adjusting pulse widths according to the desired temperature distribution to be produced in the grating.Filed by Mitsubishi Electric, published 2002-12-12 — one of the earlier tunable dispersion compensation approaches referenced across this dataset.
Most-cited records in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130317753A1 | System, Method, and Apparatus for Electronic Patient Care | 1,146 |
| 2 | US20120185267A1 | System, Method, and Apparatus for Electronic Patient Care | 696 |
| 3 | US5802236A | Article comprising a micro-structured optical fiber, and method of making such fiber | 662 |
| 4 | US5809395A | Remote antenna driver for a radio telephony system | 623 |
| 5 | US5818630A | Single-mode amplifiers and compressors based on multi-mode fibers | 581 |
| 6 | US5588009A | Personal paging, communications, and locating system | 567 |
| 7 | US10911515B2 | System, method, and apparatus for electronic patient care | 555 |
| 8 | US20190154439A1 | A Method and Apparatus for Cooperative Usage of Multiple Distance Meters | 523 |
| 9 | US20130317837A1 | System, Method, and Apparatus for Electronic Patient Care | 521 |
| 10 | US5802173A | Radiotelephony system | 487 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; read them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three findings that shape where to file, where to watch, and where the record still leaves room to move.
Concentration
23.7%
of all 20,029 records held by the top 5
A leader, not a lock
The leading assignee holds 1,264 records and the top 5 combined hold 23.7% of the full 20,029-record set. That leaves more than three-quarters of the field distributed across a long tail of filers, which means dense prior art near the leaders' core claims but real room to differentiate elsewhere.
Based on the 100-company ranked list returned by the data endpoint.
Momentum
-44%
filings, 2021 to 2024
Volume is genuinely down, not just under-published
Annual filings fell from 367 in 2021 to 205 in 2024, a complete four-year window unaffected by publication lag. Combined with a 2020 peak of 530, the pattern reads as a field past its filing high point rather than one still accelerating.
2025 and 2026 volumes are excluded from this comparison because they are still filling in.
Claim coverage
42.6% vs 4.0%
H04B share vs H04Q share of records
Transmission and optics crowd the middle; switching lags
H04B and G02B each sit above 42% of the 20,029 records, and H04J, G02F and H01S each clear 16%. H01L and H04Q, by contrast, sit at 4.1% and 4.0% — the semiconductor and switching layers around the optical core are comparatively thin.
Class shares overlap because records can carry multiple IPC codes.
Geography
8,289
records with a US receiving office
Filing is US- and Europe-weighted, with Japan close behind
The United States accounts for 8,289 records, ahead of Europe (EPO) at 3,613 and Japan at 3,025; WIPO/PCT filings sit at 1,302. That ordering points to where enforcement risk and prior art density are both highest.
Receiving-office counts, not family counts, so a single family can appear at more than one office.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fiber-optic communications patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is active, and where activity has cooled
The ranked leaders skew toward established telecom-equipment and optical-component makers, but recent-year filing counts show most of them pulling back rather than pushing forward.
Leader
1,264
records
A single leader well ahead of fifth place
The top-ranked assignee holds 1,264 records against 687 at fifth place and 299 at tenth — a steep drop-off that marks a genuine leader rather than a cluster of near-equals at the top.
Ranked by total records in the 100-company assignee list.
Recent momentum
-100% YoY
latest-year filings for several leaders
Several established leaders show zero latest-year filings
Multiple assignees among the ranked leaders report zero filings in the latest year, with year-over-year declines of -100% for some and -71% for the most active of the group. That is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback rather than a company-specific retreat.
Latest-year figures are the most exposed to publication lag of any number on this page.
Collaboration
10
co-assignee pairs identified
Co-filing is limited and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairs cluster around a small set of telecom and materials companies. Co-filing here looks like occasional joint development rather than a structural pattern.
Strongest pairs by shared record count.
Latest-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 2 | -71% |
| NEC Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Fujitsu Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) | 0 | — |
| Corning Incorporated | 0 | -100% |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| AT&T Corp. | 0 | — |
| Lucent Technologies Inc. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with a clear leader, a long tail, and claim density that is uneven across subclasses. The next steps depend on whether the goal is defensive clearance or a new filing.
Check freedom to operate against the leader's core claims
With 23.7% of all records held by the top 5 assignees, any new filing near the transmission or optics core should be checked against their dense prior art before drafting.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTest claim language in the under-claimed branches
H01L and H04Q sit well below the transmission and optics classes in record share, suggesting room to file at the switching and semiconductor boundary without stepping on the densest prior art.
Draft and stress-test claims in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The dataset's ranked leader holds 1,264 records, well ahead of fifth place at 687 and tenth place at 299, so there is a genuine leader rather than a tight cluster at the top. The top 5 assignees combined hold 23.7% of all 20,029 records in scope, which leaves the large majority of filings spread across a long tail of other companies. That combination — a clear leader plus a long tail — means competitive risk is concentrated near the leader's core claims but relatively open elsewhere in the field.
No — filings peaked in 2020 at 530 records and then declined; the 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch that can be treated as complete, shows a drop from 367 to 205 records, a 44% fall. Years after 2024 should not be read as continuing that decline, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and those years are still accumulating records. The honest read is that the field passed its filing peak several years ago rather than that it is currently slowing.
H04B (transmission, general) and G02B (optical elements and systems) each appear on more than 42% of the 20,029 records in scope, making them the two dominant classes. H04J, G02F and H01S each sit around 16 to 17%, covering multiplexing, optical modulation and lasers respectively. H01L (semiconductor devices) and H04Q (switching and selecting) trail well behind at around 4% each, marking them as comparatively under-claimed relative to the optical and transmission core.
The clearest gap sits between the heavily claimed transmission and optics classes (H04B, G02B, both above 42% of records) and the thinner switching and semiconductor layers (H04Q and H01L, both around 4%). Sub-areas such as wavelength-control heater arrays, fiber-diameter web structures, and the integration point between optical receivers and switching logic show comparatively lighter claim density. That does not guarantee novelty, but it does indicate less crowded prior art to design around.
US20020186929A1, filed by Mitsubishi Electric, claims a tunable dispersion compensation device built around an optical waveguide grating, a set of heaters arranged along the optical axis, and a pulsed-current supply unit that shapes the grating's temperature distribution using controlled pulse widths. It specifically covers chirped-grating implementations and pulse-width control tied to a desired temperature profile. Anyone building a heater-driven, pulsed-current approach to tunable dispersion compensation should read this claim set closely before finalizing a similar architecture.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Fiber-Optic Communications Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.