Grain Quality Sensing Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Three named assignees cover the entire ranked field, with the leader alone holding 26 of the tracked families.
- Filing peaked in 2018 at 7 and has cooled since — publication lag means the most recent year understates real activity.
- H04N and A01D dominate appearing in 65.9% and 63.4% of the 41 records in scope, while weighing and conveying claims stay thin.
What this landscape covers
Grain quality sensing and grading sits at the intersection of on-combine instrumentation and post-harvest inspection: optical and acoustic sensors that estimate moisture, protein content and kernel condition in real time, paired with the image classification and data recognition pipelines that turn raw signal into a grading decision. The scope here pulls records where sensing hardware (near-infrared analysis, moisture meters, acoustic flow sensors) is claimed alongside a grading or classification step, rather than either alone.
The 41 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with filings concentrated around on-machine harvesting equipment rather than laboratory bench instruments. Three named assignees account for the entire ranked field, which is unusually tight for a sensing category and suggests most competitive activity here has come from a small number of agricultural-equipment specialists rather than a broad instrumentation supplier base.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 41-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings opened at 4 in 2017, rose to a peak of 7 in 2018, and have since declined toward 0 in 2026 — though the most recent one to two years are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Treat the tail as provisional rather than as a genuine drop-off in R&D activity.
IPC subclass composition
H04N (pictorial communication) and A01D (harvesting and mowing) each appear in a majority of the 41 records, reflecting how heavily this field leans on camera-based sensing mounted directly on harvesting equipment. G01S, G06K and G06T follow as the machine-vision and positioning backbone, while G01N (material analysis), G01G (weighing) and B65G (conveying) sit further down — these are the categories with the thinnest claim coverage relative to the rest of the set.
Shares are the percentage of the 41 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Grain Quality Sensing and Grading with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records
Acoustic material flow sensor (US9631964B2)
A material flow sensor for a harvesting machine using an acoustic chamber, impact plate and microphone connected through a pneumatic impulse line: crop matter striking the impact plate generates sound waves that travel to the microphone, which converts them into an electrical signal representing sound power — and, in turn, the mass of the crop matter passing the sensor.Filed by Precision Planting LLC, dated 2017-04-25.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170235471A1 | Harvesting machine capable of automatic adjustment | 128 |
| 2 | US20180000011A1 | Grain quality sensor | 124 |
| 3 | US9629308B2 | Harvesting machine capable of automatic adjustment | 119 |
| 4 | US9631964B2 | Acoustic material flow sensor | 95 |
| 5 | US20160000008A1 | Harvesting machine capable of automatic adjustment | 57 |
| 6 | US10318138B2 | Harvesting machine capable of automatic adjustment | 43 |
| 7 | US20160078611A1 | Non-image-based grain quality sensor | 36 |
| 8 | US20160003656A1 | Acoustic material flow sensor | 23 |
| 9 | US20160073583A1 | Load-based yield sensor | 21 |
| 10 | US10085379B2 | Grain quality sensor | 19 |
Citation counts reward older filings inside this searched corpus; read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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Read together, the trend line and the IPC mix point to a field where the vision-and-harvesting-equipment core is dense and the sensing-and-handling periphery is not.
A narrow set of holders
The assignee ranking returns only three companies across all 41 records, with the leader alone credited with 26. That is a small field to clear freedom-to-operate against, but it also means a single license or cross-reference check can cover most of the prior art that matters.
Activity has cooled since 2018
Filing rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2018 and has tapered toward 0 by 2026. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one or two years understate what has actually been filed — the real trend is softer than the chart alone suggests, not necessarily flat.
Vision and harvesting claims dominate
H04N (pictorial communication) and A01D (harvesting and mowing) each cover a majority of records, while G01N material analysis sits at 29.3% and G01G weighing at just 17.1%. Claim density is heaviest where camera-based sensing meets the combine, and thinnest around bench-style material analysis and conveying integration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to grain quality sensing and grading, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where they overlap
Three named assignees make up the entire ranked field, and all three pairs of them co-appear on filings — a tight, interlinked group rather than isolated competitors.
The dominant filer
One assignee accounts for the majority of the ranked field at 26 records, well ahead of the other two named players. Recent-year momentum for this assignee is listed at 0 in the latest year, consistent with the field-wide slowdown visible in the trend data.
A tightly linked group
Every possible pairing among the three named assignees shows up as a co-assignee pair, each appearing twice. That pattern is more consistent with joint development, shared subsidiaries or acquisition history than with arm's-length competition.
Field-wide pause, not a single retreat
All three named assignees show zero filings in the latest year on record. Combined with the 18-month publication lag, this reads as a temporary reporting gap for a still-active niche rather than clear evidence that any of the three has exited the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Agriculture Solutions LLC | 0 | — |
| APPAREO SYSTEMS LLC | 0 | — |
| Precision Planting LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a tight ownership group and a specific set of thinly-claimed adjacencies rather than a wide-open field.
Check freedom-to-operate against the three named holders
With only three assignees covering the entire ranking, a targeted clearance review against those three is more tractable than a broad industry sweep — start with the co-assignee pairs, since they signal shared or overlapping claim strategy.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTreat the 2025–2026 dip as a lag artefact, not a trend
Before concluding that filing has genuinely stopped, adjust for the roughly 18-month publication lag — recent-year counts are provisional and likely to rise as later filings publish.
Track filing trends in EurekaLook at G01G and B65G for open claim space
Weighing and conveying integration carry the lightest coverage among the tracked IPC subclasses, making them worth a closer look for anyone drafting new claims rather than defending existing ones.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The assignee ranking for this scope returns just three named companies, and one of them holds 26 of the 41 records tracked. That degree of concentration in a small ranking means the field is easier to map for freedom-to-operate purposes than most sensing categories, but it also means a single dominant holder's claims are worth reviewing closely before filing. All three assignees also co-appear on filings together, suggesting close commercial or corporate ties rather than fully independent development.
Filing peaked at 7 records in 2018 and has declined toward 0 by 2026, but that decline should not be read at face value. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the last one to two years in any patent trend are understated by definition. There is not enough complete post-2018 data to state a reliable growth or decline rate, and none is claimed here.
Pictorial communication (H04N) and harvesting/mowing equipment (A01D) each appear in a majority of the 41 records in scope — 65.9% and 63.4% respectively — reflecting how much of the claimed technology is camera-based sensing mounted directly on combines and harvesters. Positioning and radar-style sensing (G01S) and image/data recognition (G06K, G06T) form the supporting machine-vision layer. Material analysis, weighing and conveying integration carry noticeably lighter coverage.
The thinnest claim coverage in this dataset sits in weighing (G01G, 17.1% of records) and conveying/material handling (B65G, 14.6%), well below the vision- and harvesting-heavy core. Specific sub-areas worth a closer look include acoustic flow-rate calibration, in-line protein content estimation, and fusing moisture measurement directly with weighing or conveying output — areas that sit adjacent to the dense claims rather than inside them.
US9631964B2 claims an acoustic material flow sensor for harvesting machines: an impact plate and microphone connected by a pneumatic impulse line, converting the sound of crop matter striking the plate into an electrical signal that represents mass flow. It is held by Precision Planting LLC and is one of the more highly cited records in this landscape. Anyone building an acoustic-based flow or mass-rate sensor for a harvester should review this claim set specifically, since it covers the core mechanism rather than a narrow implementation detail — though alternative sensing modalities such as optical or capacitive flow detection sit outside its claim language.
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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.