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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/humanoid-robot-human-machine-interface-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Robotics & Automation · Patent LandscapeHumanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface Patents
- Filing was flat until 2022, then accelerated sharply the field moved from a handful of scattered filings to 29 in 2025 alone, with 2026 already adding to that base — this is a technology area that essentially started filing in the last three years.
- One founding patent family anchors the entire citation graph US20170148434A1 and its continuations from Softbank Robotics Europe are cited far more than anything else in the set, meaning most later filers had to design around this multi-modal dialogue claim.
- India and the US are filing at the same volume 18 receiving-office filings apiece, ahead of PCT and European routes — a signal that academic and applicant activity in India is now comparable in scale to US filers in this niche.
48
Published Records
73%
Top-5 Share of All Records
IN
Leading Jurisdiction
53
Active Filers Ranked
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of humanoid or bipedal robot hardware and the interfaces that let a person direct them — gesture recognition, voice and multi-modal dialogue, teleoperation control, and intuitive command interfaces. The search combines robot-body terms with interaction-layer terms and restricts to IPC classes covering manipulator control and digital data processing, so the set is deliberately narrow: it captures where robotics and HMI claims overlap, not humanoid robotics broadly.
48 families were published across the coverage window, with filing activity concentrated almost entirely in the last few years. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the 2026 figure in particular understates what has actually been filed.
Filing activity by year, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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
The trend line and the IPC mix together show a field that was essentially dormant through the late 2010s and has only recently become active, with claim activity still overwhelmingly anchored in robot manipulator control rather than in the surrounding software layers.
A late, steep ramp
Filings sat at zero through 2017 and stayed near zero at the 2022 midpoint, then rose to a peak of 29 in 2025. That shape — flat, then a step change — points to a technology that only recently crossed from research into filed IP, so precedent is thinner than the raw family count suggests.
Manipulator control still dominates
B25J (manipulators & robots) appears in nearly every family (47 of 48), confirming the search is well targeted. Behind it, G06N (AI models, 19) and G10L (speech & audio, 10) plus G06F (digital data processing, 10) show the interface layer splitting between AI-driven dialogue and lower-level input processing, while B62D, A61B, G05D and A61H each register only a handful of records — these are adjacent application areas (mobility platforms, surgical/therapy robots) that have barely been claimed yet from an HMI angle.
Shares are the percentage of the 48 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 Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The filings shaping this space
Representative filing
Method of performing multi-modal dialogue between a humanoid robot and user
SOFTBANK ROBOTICS EUROPE
The patent describes a humanoid robot acquiring input from sound, motion and image sensors, interpreting it as user events — a spoken word, an intonation, a gesture, a posture, a facial expression — and generating a matching robot response from a combined set of those event types rather than from a single channel.Filed by Softbank Robotics Europe; published 2017-05-25. Two related family members (US10242666B2, EP2933067A1) also sit among the most-cited records in this set.
Most-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170148434A1 | Method of performing multi-modal dialogue between a humanoid robot and user, computer program product and hum… | 46 |
| 2 | US10242666B2 | Method of performing multi-modal dialogue between a humanoid robot and user, computer program product and hum… | 22 |
| 3 | EP2933067A1 | Method of performing multi-modal dialogue between a humanoid robot and user, computer program product and hum… | 14 |
| 4 | US20260070221A1 | Bipedal action model for humanoid robot | 6 |
| 5 | US20190172448A1 | Method of performing multi-modal dialogue between a humanoid robot and user, computer program product and hum… | 6 |
| 6 | US20260097492A1 | Annotation model for humanoid robot data | 5 |
| 7 | US20260084309A1 | System and method for calibration of humanoid robots | 4 |
| 8 | US20260061611A1 | Management of multiple modes for humanoid robot | 1 |
| 9 | US20260124746A1 | Training and use of a bipedal action model for humanoid robot | 1 |
| 10 | US20260126804A1 | Bipedal action model for humanoid robot | 1 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a map of what later filers had to design around, not as a ranking of current value.
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 Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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 patterns stand out once the trend, the citation graph and the IPC split are read together.
Timing
0 → 29
families, 2017 to 2025 peak
This is a young filing area
With the 2022 midpoint still at zero, almost the entire corpus was filed inside a three-year window. There is little defensive prior art built up compared to more mature robotics fields, which lowers the bar for a well-drafted claim but also means examiners have less to search against.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Concentration
46 citations
on the top-cited family
One dialogue patent anchors the field
The Softbank Robotics Europe multi-modal dialogue family is cited more than three times the next-most-cited record. Any new filing on combined voice-gesture-posture interpretation for a humanoid robot needs freedom-to-operate review against this family and its continuations first.
Citation ranking
Geography
18 & 18
India and US filings, tied
India has caught up to the US in volume
India and the United States each account for 18 filings at the receiving-office level, well ahead of PCT, Australian or European routes. That parity is unusual for a robotics niche this new and suggests academic and applicant filing out of India is a meaningful, not marginal, part of the landscape.
Receiving-office counts
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 humanoid robot human-machine interface, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and how fast momentum is fading
The assignee set is a short list of active corporate and academic filers on top of a long tail of single-family entrants, and recent-year momentum is falling across almost every named player rather than concentrating further.
Momentum
-88% YoY
for the most active recent filer
Even the leaders are pulling back
The assignee with the most recent-year filings still posted an 88% year-on-year decline, and several other named assignees dropped to zero filings in the latest year after being active previously. Read this alongside the 2025 peak: momentum may be shifting to filers not yet visible as repeat assignees, or simply cooling after the initial rush.
Recent-year momentum by assignee
Collaboration
10 pairs
co-assignee relationships
Co-filing is rare and mostly academic
Only 10 co-assignee pairs exist across the corpus, and the strongest is a repeat pairing between two individual academic engineering filers rather than a corporate joint venture. There is no dominant cross-company alliance pattern here yet.
Co-assignee pairs
Long tail
48 families
across the full assignee ranking
No single filer dominates the family count
The founding citations trace back to one European robotics firm, but the broader family ranking spans corporate, university and individual filers with no single entity holding a commanding share of the 48 total families — this remains an open field rather than a two-player race.
Assignee ranking
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Artificial Intelligence Corporation | 2 | -88% |
| Softbank Robotics Europe | 0 | — |
| Jinki Kaitai Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Aldebaran Robotics | 0 | — |
| PRIYA GOYAL COMPUTER ENGINEERING | 0 | -100% |
| MAHENDRA ENG COLLEGE | 0 | -100% |
| INDRA KISHOR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | 0 | -100% |
| Hiroshima University | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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 trend and citation data point to specific next questions for anyone deciding whether to file, license or design around in this space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the founding dialogue family
Before drafting any claim touching combined voice-gesture-posture interpretation, screen against US20170148434A1 and its continuations, which sit well ahead of every other record on citations.
Explore prior art in EurekaWatch whether 2025's filers keep filing in 2026
Momentum is dropping sharply for the most active recent assignees; a full 2026 filing count once publication catches up will show whether this was a one-year surge or a sustained shift.
Track filing trends in EurekaScreen the under-claimed branches before the core
Manipulator-control claim space is dense; the therapy, mobility and non-electric control adjacencies are not. A first-mover claim there faces less prior art.
Map white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Questions practitioners ask about this landscape
Softbank Robotics Europe holds the most-cited family in this corpus, a multi-modal dialogue patent (US20170148434A1) with related continuations in the US and Europe that together dominate the citation graph. Beyond that founding family, the assignee base is fragmented across corporate, university and individual filers, with no single entity holding a commanding share of the 48 total families. This means the field has a clear historical anchor but no single current gatekeeper.
It depends on the sub-area. Manipulator control (IPC class B25J) appears in nearly every family and is dense, so claims tightly overlapping that core face real prior art. Adjacent branches — therapy and rehabilitation interfaces, vehicle-integrated control, non-electric variable control loops — show only a handful of records each, which suggests they are comparatively open for a well-scoped first claim.
The trend data shows filings at zero through 2017 and still at zero at the 2022 midpoint, then a jump to a peak of 29 families in 2025. This pattern typically reflects a technology moving from lab research into commercial or near-commercial development, at which point applicants start protecting specific interface implementations rather than general robotics concepts. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the true 2025-2026 filing volume is likely higher than currently visible.
It covers a method where a humanoid robot takes input from at least a sound sensor and a motion or image sensor, interprets that input as user events spanning speech, intonation, gesture, posture and facial expression, and generates a robot response derived from a combination of those event types. Anyone building a single-channel voice-only or gesture-only control interface likely sits outside its core scope, but combined multi-modal interpretation architectures should be checked against it and its continuations directly. It is the most-cited record in this dataset by a wide margin, which is why it functions as the field's reference point.
India and the United States are tied as the leading receiving offices, each with 18 filings, ahead of PCT international filings, Australia, and European national routes. The parity between India and the US is notable for a niche this recent, and points to meaningful academic or independent-inventor filing activity out of India alongside the more expected US corporate filings. WIPO PCT filings (5) remain a minority route, suggesting most applicants are not yet pursuing broad international protection for these specific interface claims.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Humanoid Robot Human-Machine Interface covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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.