The dataset ranks 100 assignees across 220 records, with the leading holder at 25 records and the top 5 combined accounting for 33.6% of all records in scope. That leaves roughly two-thirds of filings spread across a long tail of universities, diagnostics companies and smaller entrants. No single company controls the field outright, but the leaders have enough density to shape freedom-to-operate analysis for anyone entering detection-method claims.

G01N (material analysis and testing) is by far the largest classification, appearing in 74.5% of the 220 records, followed by C12Q (enzyme and DNA testing) at 20.5% and B01L (lab apparatus) at 11.4%. This means most claims describe how the chip detects or measures a sample rather than the physical chip structure itself. Structural classifications such as B81B (MEMS devices, 5.9%) and C08F (polymer substrates, 3.6%) are comparatively thin, marking areas with less claim density.

China leads receiving-office volume with 57 filings, ahead of the United States at 42, and EPO and WIPO/PCT each at 28. Australia and Canada trail well behind at 11 and 10 respectively. For companies assessing where enforcement risk or licensing opportunity is concentrated, China and the US together represent the majority of near-term exposure in this dataset.

Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 15 records and has since continued at a lower, fairly steady pace, with 4 records recorded in 2026 so far. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent two to three years are understated in any patent count and should not be read as a genuine slowdown. A reliable growth rate cannot be computed from this record set once that lag is accounted for.

US7527719B2, assigned to Tsinghua University, claims a three-layer capillary electrophoresis chip: an upper microfluidic channel layer, a middle electrode layer that seals the channel and supplies electrophoresis voltage, and a lower heating layer that maintains a temperature gradient. It ties nucleotide and single-nucleotide-polymorphism detection to that specific physical stack rather than to capillary electrophoresis in general. A design that detects SNPs through a different layer arrangement, heating method or electrode placement would sit outside its literal claim scope, though a full freedom-to-operate check should still compare it against the broader G01N-classified filings in the dataset.