Silicon-Photonic Grating Coupler Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (477 records) with 2024 (296) — 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 4,412 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the grating-coupler patent record actually shows
Grating couplers sit at the physical edge of every silicon-photonic chip — the point where light moves between an optical fiber and an on-chip waveguide. Because that coupling step touches optics, semiconductor fabrication and communications equipment all at once, the 4,412 records in scope spread across a wide set of IPC subclasses rather than sitting in one narrow bucket. Filing activity peaked in 2021 and has since eased, though the two most recent years in the dataset are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates.
The assignee ranking is led by a small group of research institutes, foundries and networking-equipment makers, but concentration is moderate rather than extreme: the top five hold under a quarter of all records, and the ranking runs a full 100 companies deep before it thins into single-digit filers. That combination — a recognizable leadership group plus a long tail — is typical of a component technology that many equipment makers need to touch but few can fully own.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 4,412-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records split across the IPC subclasses that grating-coupler patents most often cite.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 477 records in 2021, then declined to 296 by 2024 — a 38% drop over that span. The 2025 and 2026 figures are partial: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the final years of any patent trend always understate real activity.
IPC subclass composition
G02B (optical elements & systems) appears in 64.6% of all records, far ahead of G02F (15.6%) and H04B (14.9%). Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to well over 100% of the 4,412-record total — they describe overlap, not a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,412 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Integrated Photonics — Silicon-Photonic Grating Couplers Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
US20210172803A1 — Thermal imaging with an integrated photonics chip (Honeywell International)
An integrated photonics chip for thermal imaging comprises a photonics substrate with multiple receiver elements. Each receiver element pairs a grating coupler with a waveguide filter tuned to a specific wavelength and angle, so that light from an object of interest is separated by wavelength directly on-chip before detection.Filed as a thermal-imaging sensor application, this record shows grating couplers being claimed as a wavelength-selective front end rather than purely as a fiber-to-chip interface — a use case that sits outside the classic telecom coupling claim.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140376001A1 | Integrated optical system and components utilizing tunable optical sources and coherent detection and phased … | 347 |
| 2 | US20090052827A1 | Silicon-Compatible Surface Plasmon Optical Elements | 316 |
| 3 | US20170207600A1 | 3D photonic integration with light coupling elements | 297 |
| 4 | US8213751B1 | Electronic-integration compatible photonic integrated circuit and method for fabricating electronic-integrati… | 220 |
| 5 | US6243517B1 | Channel-switched cross-connect | 215 |
| 6 | US20170299697A1 | Light Detection and Ranging System with Photonic Integrated Circuit | 202 |
| 7 | US20170371227A1 | Methods and Systems for Optical Beam Steering | 196 |
| 8 | US20150378187A1 | Solid state lidar circuit | 196 |
| 9 | US6393185B1 | Differential waveguide pair | 189 |
| 10 | US20170184450A1 | Low power, high resolution solid state lidar circuit | 175 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favor older filings that have simply had more time to accumulate citations — treat them as a signal of influence rather than of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns worth acting on before drafting new claims or scoping freedom-to-operate in this space.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The top five assignees combined hold 24.4% of all 4,412 records in scope, and the top ten hold 35.2%. That leaves nearly two-thirds of the corpus spread across the remaining ranked companies and a long tail below them — room for a well-targeted filing to matter.
Volume has eased from its 2021 peak
Filings ran at 477 records in 2021, the peak year of the dataset, and fell to 296 by 2024 — a 38% decline over three years. That is the last year the trend can be read as complete; 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates.
Optical-elements claims dominate the map
G02B (optical elements & systems) appears in 64.6% of all 4,412 records, well ahead of optical control (G02F, 15.6%) and transmission (H04B, 14.9%). Laser, positioning and multiplex-communication classes each sit under 10%, marking thinner claim territory adjacent to the core.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to integrated photonics — silicon-photonic grating couplers patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy or new claim drafting.
Check freedom-to-operate against the most-cited records
The highest-cited records in this corpus, several dating back over a decade, still anchor foundational claims around integrated coupling and photonic circuit architecture. Any new coupler design should be checked against these before filing.
Explore FTO workflows in EurekaWatch the co-assignee institute-university pairings
The strongest collaborative filing relationship in the dataset runs well ahead of any other pairing, suggesting a concentrated source of foundational IP that licenses outward. Tracking that relationship's future filings is a reasonable early-warning signal for the field.
Track assignee activity in EurekaDraft narrower claims in under-10% classes
Laser-source, positioning and multiplex-communication classes each touch under 10% of the 4,412 records, despite sitting adjacent to the dominant optical-elements category. That gap is where a specific, narrowly drafted claim is least likely to collide with existing coverage.
Model claim scope in EurekaCommon questions about grating-coupler patents
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 100 companies, led by a research institute whose filings alone account for 326 of the 4,412 records in scope. The top five assignees combined hold 24.4% of all records, and the top ten hold 35.2%, which means concentration is real but far from total. Below that leadership group sits a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, so the field is not closed to new entrants.
Filings peaked at 477 records in 2021 and had fallen to 296 by 2024, a 38% decline over that three-year span. That said, patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any such dataset are necessarily incomplete and should not be read as proof of a continued decline. 2021-to-2024 is the most reliable window for judging the recent trend.
Optical elements and systems (IPC class G02B) appear in 64.6% of all 4,412 records, making it by far the dominant overlapping category. Optical control and modulation (G02F) and general transmission (H04B) follow at 15.6% and 14.9% respectively, with semiconductor devices, lasers, positioning, material analysis and multiplex communication classes all appearing at lower but still meaningful shares. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these categories overlap rather than partition the field.
Classes adjacent to the dominant optical-elements category — laser sources, radar/positioning, material analysis, and multiplex communication — each touch under 10% of the 4,412 records despite being technically relevant to how couplers are deployed. That gap suggests narrower claims combining grating-coupler structures with those adjacent functions, such as wavelength-selective sensing or LiDAR beam steering, face less crowded prior art than core fiber-to-chip coupling claims.
Not necessarily. Citation counts in a searched patent corpus tend to favor older filings simply because they have had more years to accumulate citations, so the most-cited records in this dataset date back a decade or more. A high citation count is a reasonable signal of historical influence on the field, but it should be checked against current claim scope and legal status before assuming the patent still blocks new designs.
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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.