Infrared Optics Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. the top 5 assignees hold 37.0% of all 108 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 54.6% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak. activity ran from 13 records in 2021 down to 3 in 2024, a -77% swing over that span, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in as publications lag filing.
- China dominates the filing venue. 48 of the tracked receiving-office filings sit in China, more than double the United States at 21, pointing to where enforcement and freedom-to-operate risk is highest.
Filing growth compares 2021 (13 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 108 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 108 published records matching infrared lens and athermalized infrared optics claims, spanning chalcogenide glass substrates, germanium substitute materials, antireflection coatings, focus-shift compensation, molded lens processes and narcissus-effect mitigation. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, so the most recent filing years are necessarily incomplete: publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Records are grouped into patent families for the assignee ranking, which neutralises the effect of continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates. IPC subclass shares, receiving-office counts and citation figures below are drawn directly from the same 108-record scope.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 108-record scope: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 13 records in 2021, then declined to 3 by 2024 (-77% over that span). 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
IPC subclass composition
G02B (optical elements & systems) covers 83.3% of the 108 records, confirming this is fundamentally a lens-design field. G01J (radiation measurement) at 15.7% and the glass-materials classes C03B/C03C at 7.4%/6.5% mark the next tiers of claim activity; classes can overlap on a single record, so shares sum above 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 108 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Infrared Optics and Athermalization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about infrared optics and athermalization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art and a representative recent filing
US20230393363A1 — Infrared lens unit and infrared detection device
An infrared lens unit includes a lens barrel and an infrared lens supported on the lens barrel. The lens barrel includes a tubular part with an inner circumferential surface and a protruding part on that surface; the infrared lens is supported via the protruding part. The infrared lens is made of chalcogenide glass, and the protruding part's cross-section on the axial plane is described as linear.Filed by Panasonic Intellectual Property Management, published 2023-12-07 — illustrates the current generation of mechanical mounting claims layered on chalcogenide-glass lens elements.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120188634A1 | Passively Athermalized Infrared Imaging System And Method Of Manufacturing Same | 178 |
| 2 | US20120019905A1 | Lens unit and vehicle-mounted infrared lens unit | 72 |
| 3 | JP2001057642A | Infrared camera | 47 |
| 4 | US5796514A | Infrared zoom lens assembly having a variable F/number | 46 |
| 5 | US5567052A | Temperature distribution measurement apparatus | 45 |
| 6 | US6018414A | Dual band infrared lens assembly using diffractive optics | 43 |
| 7 | US6292293B1 | Wide-angle infrared lens and detector with internal aperture stop and associated method | 42 |
| 8 | US4999005A | Wide band color correcting infrared lens system | 34 |
| 9 | US3778133A | Lens system having at least one thin, highly deformed plate with aspherical surfaces | 34 |
| 10 | JP2006220705A | Infrared hybrid lens and manufacturing method of infrared hybrid lens | 33 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of time in the corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on subsequent filings, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the filing pattern that matter more than the raw counts.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The top 5 assignees combine for 37.0% of all 108 records and the top 10 for 54.6%. That leaves roughly half the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants — enough headroom that a newcomer with a genuinely different mounting or coating approach is not automatically boxed out by the leaders.
Peak filing has passed, for now
The field peaked at 13 records in 2021 and fell to 3 by 2024, a -77% move. Several of the most active historical filers show zero filings in the latest tracked year. Read this as a plateau after an initial claims land-grab, not as an active retreat, since 2025-2026 data is still incomplete.
China is the primary filing venue
China accounts for 48 of the tracked receiving-office filings, more than double the United States at 21, with Europe, Japan, Russia and South Korea trailing further behind. Enforcement risk and freedom-to-operate diligence should weight China accordingly.
The claim space is overwhelmingly optical-design, not materials
G02B (optical elements & systems) touches 83.3% of the 108 records, while the glass-composition classes C03B and C03C sit at 7.4% and 6.5%. Lens-mounting, athermalization mechanics and coating geometry are where the density is; substrate chemistry claims are comparatively sparse.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to infrared optics and athermalization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span optics-focused industrials, defence-adjacent imaging firms and glass/materials suppliers, but the ranking includes only the 50 companies the data endpoint returns — it is not a top-50 or top-100 cut.
A single leader sets the pace, without running away with the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 11 of the 108 records, roughly 10% of the total scope on its own. Fifth place holds 6 and tenth place holds 3 — a steep but not extreme drop-off that suggests defensible but not dominant positions even near the top of the ranking.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among historical leaders
Several of the most active historical assignees show sharp pullbacks in the latest tracked year, with some recording zero filings. This is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 decline rather than a single company exiting the space, but it does mean the most visible names are not the ones setting current pace.
Fragmented ownership below the top tier
With 54.6% of records held by the top 10, the remaining 45.4% is spread across dozens of assignees in the ranking, many likely holding only one or two families. That fragmentation is where licensing and acquisition targets typically cluster.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Chengdu Jingpin Night Vision Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. | 1 | -75% |
| Anhui Guangzhi Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Raytheon Company | 0 | — |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Raytheon TI Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang University of Science and Technology | 0 | — |
| Konica Minolta, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape narrows down to a handful of practical next steps depending on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate, sourcing licensing targets or planning your own filing strategy.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the China filings
With 48 of the tracked receiving-office filings in China against 21 in the United States, any product heading to manufacture or sale there should be checked against the China-filed claims specifically, not just the US/EPO family members.
Screen claims in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches before they fill in
Coating geometry, focus-shift compensation and molded-lens tolerance claims sit well below the G02B core density. A first-mover claim in one of these branches faces less crowded prior art today than a general lens-design filing would.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch for renewed filing once the lag window closes
The 2021-to-2024 decline is real, but 2025-2026 figures are still filling in. Re-check the trend once those years mature before concluding the field has permanently slowed.
Set an alert in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 50 assignees by patent family count across 108 records in scope. The top-ranked assignee holds 11 records, with the top 5 combined accounting for 37.0% of all records and the top 10 for 54.6%. Below that top tier, ownership fragments quickly into a long tail of companies holding only a few filings each, which means the field is led but not locked up by any single player.
Filing peaked at 13 records in 2021 and fell to 3 by 2024, a -77% decline over that span. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in this dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation of a continued slowdown. The safest reading is that the field passed an initial filing peak around 2021 and has since plateaued at a lower but not yet fully visible level.
China leads with 48 receiving-office filings in this dataset, more than double the United States at 21. Europe (EPO), Japan, Russia and South Korea follow with smaller counts. For companies assessing enforcement or freedom-to-operate risk, China is the venue with the deepest coverage and the one most worth checking first.
US20230393363A1, filed by Panasonic, claims an infrared lens unit where a chalcogenide-glass lens is supported inside a tubular lens barrel via a specific protruding mounting feature, with a defined linear cross-section on the axial plane. It does not claim chalcogenide glass as a material broadly, nor infrared lenses in general — the claim scope is tied to that particular mechanical mounting geometry. Designs using different barrel-mounting structures, or non-protruding support methods, sit outside this specific claim even if they also use chalcogenide substrates.
IPC composition shows G02B (optical elements and systems) covering 83.3% of the 108 records, while the glass-composition classes C03B and C03C sit at only 7.4% and 6.5%, and coating-related C23C sits at 3.7%. This gap suggests that mechanical and optical-design claims are comparatively crowded relative to materials chemistry and coating-process claims, which remain thinner and may offer more room for a defensible first filing.
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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.