Gas Sensor Flexible Sensor Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2019 at 35 and have since flattened, with 2022's midpoint of 21 pointing to a plateau rather than continued growth.
- G01N material analysis dominates with 247 of 333 records, while adjacent categories like G08B alarm integration and G06Q data processing sit at only 20-21 each.
- The United States leads receiving offices with 112 filings, ahead of China's 64 and a scattered group of WIPO, EPO, India and Korea filings below 35 each.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 records) with 2024 (29) — 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 333 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 333 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine gas-sensing claims with flexible, wearable or printed form factors — spanning chemiresistive designs, resonant structures and substrate-integrated electrodes. The search deliberately narrows to documents that name both a gas-detection mechanism and a flexible or printed implementation, so it excludes rigid benchtop gas analysers and generic flexible-electronics filings that never mention gas sensing.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend view are undercounts of what has actually been filed; treat the most recent one to two years as provisional rather than a real decline.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views matter here: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density. Both point to a field that consolidated early around materials-analysis claims and has not meaningfully diversified since.
A plateau, not a wave
Filings ran from 27 in 2017 to a peak of 35 in 2019, then settled near the 2022 midpoint of 21 — a pattern consistent with a technology that established its core claim territory early rather than one still accelerating.
Concentration in materials analysis
G01N (material analysis & testing) accounts for 247 of 333 records, dwarfing C01B (46), B01J (40) and H01L (25). Signalling, business-data and cabling classes each sit at 18-21 records, suggesting sensor-to-system integration claims are far less contested than the sensing mechanism itself.
Shares are the percentage of the 333 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Gas Sensor Flexible Sensor with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about gas sensor flexible sensor and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and what they establish
Printed Gas Sensor — US20140311905A1
A printed gas sensor is disclosed. The sensor may include a partially porous substrate, an electrode layer, an electrolyte layer, and an encapsulation layer. The electrode layer comprises one or more electrodes that are formed on one side of the porous substrate. The electrolyte layer is in electrolytic contact with the one or more electrodes. The encapsulation layer encapsulates the electrode layer and electrolyte layer thereby forming an integrated structure with the partially porous substrate.Filed by Sensirion AG, published 2014-10-23; the highest-cited record in this corpus at 124 citations.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140311905A1 | Printed Gas Sensor | 124 |
| 2 | US10502705B2 | Resonant gas sensor | 63 |
| 3 | US20190204265A1 | Resonant gas sensor | 56 |
| 4 | US20170016867A1 | Flexible nitrogen dioxide gas sensor based on tungsten trioxide nanoparticles coated carbon nanotubes-graphen… | 44 |
| 5 | US20160077074A1 | Interconnected corrugated carbon-based network | 41 |
| 6 | US20120125772A1 | Printed Gas Sensor | 41 |
| 7 | US20060076584A1 | Fabrication of electronic and photonic systems on flexible substrates by layer transfer method | 39 |
| 8 | US11137368B2 | Resonant gas sensor | 37 |
| 9 | US20180052136A1 | Nanoporous semiconductor thin films | 37 |
| 10 | US20120055232A1 | Photoacoustic Gas Detector with Integrated Signal Processing | 36 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; a low count on a recent filing does not mean it is unimportant.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three figures carry the most weight for a freedom-to-operate or whitespace assessment: the citation gap at the top of the ranking, the IPC skew, and the flat co-assignee network.
One filing anchors the prior art
The Sensirion printed-gas-sensor filing draws roughly double the citations of the next-ranked record (63), meaning its electrode-electrolyte-encapsulation structure is the reference point most subsequent filers had to design around or cite past.
Sensing mechanism claims dominate
Nearly three-quarters of records sit in G01N, versus 21 each in G08B (alarm/signalling) and G06Q (data processing). System-level integration — how a flexible sensor reports into an alarm or analytics pipeline — is comparatively under-claimed.
A field of independent filers
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across 333 families, each linked at most twice. That is a sparse collaboration network compared to fields with dense joint-venture filing, and it means most assignees are protecting positions independently rather than through shared research vehicles.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to gas sensor flexible sensor, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum has stalled
Recent-year momentum figures show the opposite of a hot field: several previously active assignees, including Leadyn, SPEC Sensors, University of California Regents and IIT Kanpur, recorded zero filings in the latest year, with year-over-year drops of -100% where a prior baseline existed. That is consistent with the flat 2019-2022 trend rather than a contradiction of it.
A modest, well-defined dataset
The field is narrow enough that a handful of assignees plus a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants make up the full ranking, rather than a handful of firms among thousands of records.
Momentum has stalled across the board
SPEC Sensors, GE, MIT and Innosenta all show zero filings in the latest tracked year alongside Leadyn and IIT Kanpur's explicit -100% YoY drops, suggesting the slowdown is corpus-wide rather than isolated to one filer exiting the space.
US and China lead, rest trail
The United States (112) and China (64) together account for over half of all receiving-office filings; WIPO, EPO, India and Korea each sit below 35, indicating most applicants are not yet pursuing broad multi-jurisdiction coverage.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Leadyn Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| SPEC Sensors, LLC | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of California | 0 | — |
| Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur | 0 | -100% |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Innosenta Inc. | 0 | — |
| General Electric Infrastructure Technology LLC | 0 | — |
| Sensirion AG | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion. Each of these narrows the landscape further before a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Map the encapsulation and substrate claims directly
With G01N so heavily occupied, the more open question is which specific encapsulation and porous-substrate structures remain unclaimed relative to the Sensirion reference filing.
Explore claim structures in EurekaCheck the alarm-integration gap against active filers
G08B sits at only 21 records against 247 in G01N — worth confirming whether that gap is genuine white space or simply unindexed under this search string.
Run a targeted search in EurekaWatch for renewed filing after the 2025-2026 lag corrects
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the apparent stall in 2025-2026 may partially resolve as later filings publish; revisit the trend in a future cut.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions on flexible gas sensor patents
By citation count within this corpus, the Sensirion AG filing US20140311905A1 for a printed gas sensor is the clear reference point, cited 124 times against 63 for the next-ranked record. That does not mean Sensirion holds the most patents overall, only that its electrode-electrolyte-encapsulation structure is the prior art other filers most often had to cite around. Recent-year momentum data shows several other historically active assignees, including SPEC Sensors, GE and MIT, with no filings in the latest tracked year, so citation leadership and current filing activity are not the same thing here.
The filing trend does not support continued growth: activity peaked at 35 filings in 2019, sat at 21 by the 2022 midpoint, and multiple leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent tracked year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the very latest years are always undercounted, so some of the apparent 2025-2026 drop-off will likely correct upward. Even accounting for that lag, the 2019-2022 pattern already shows a plateau rather than acceleration.
G01N, material analysis and testing, covers 247 of the 333 records in this dataset, making it by far the dominant classification. C01B (non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds, 46 records) and B01J (chemical and physical processes, 40 records) follow at a distance, largely reflecting sensing-material chemistry claims. Classes tied to system integration, such as G08B for alarm signalling and G06Q for data processing, sit much lower at around 20-21 records each, indicating that how a flexible sensor connects into a larger reporting system is comparatively under-claimed.
The IPC composition suggests the sensing-material chemistry itself, G01N and C01B territory, is heavily occupied, while alarm-system integration, printed-electrode manufacturing processes, and sensor-to-analytics data pipelines carry far fewer filings. The sparse co-assignee network, only ten pairs across 333 families, also suggests most current claims were filed independently rather than through joint development programmes, which can leave collaborative or licensing-friendly structures less explored. Any specific white-space claim should still be checked against the highest-cited prior art, particularly the Sensirion printed-sensor structure, before drafting.
The United States leads receiving offices with 112 filings, followed by China at 64, then a cluster of WIPO (PCT), European (EPO), Indian and South Korean filings all below 35 each. This distribution suggests most applicants are prioritising US protection first and pursuing broader multi-jurisdiction coverage selectively rather than as a default strategy. A filer targeting global coverage should check whether the WIPO PCT filings in this corpus later converted to national phase in the smaller receiving offices, since that conversion rate is not captured in raw receiving-office counts.
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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.