Machine vision lighting and optics selection patents: who leads and where filing has plateaued
Filing has plateaued, not declined. 125 filings at the 2020 peak, then flat at 53 in both 2021 and 2024 — a 0% three-year change once the recent publication-lag years are set aside. Filings ran from 121 in 2017 to a peak of 125 in 2020, then held flat: 2021 and 2024 both landed at 53, a 0% change over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026's low counts as incomplete data rather than a slowdown.
- 1AMGEN INC9.0%
- 2GEMOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA INC4.5%
- 3PANASONIC HOLDINGS CORP3.0%
- 4BAXTER HEALTHCARE SA2.3%
- 5BAXTER INT INC2.3%
See the full machine vision lighting and optics selection analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about machine vision lighting and optics patents
Who holds the most patents in machine vision lighting and optics selection?
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 164 records among the 1,816 in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 42. Filing is concentrated at the top: the five leading assignees together account for 384 records, or 21.1% of all 1,816 records, and the top ten reach 29.2%. Below that concentration sits a long tail of assignees with only a handful of filings each, which is typical for a field built on component-level optical and illumination claims rather than one dominant platform.
Is the machine vision lighting and optics patent field still growing?
Filings peaked at 125 in 2020 after rising from 121 in 2017, then plateaued: the 2021 and 2024 counts are both 53, a 0% change over that three-year window. That reads as a mature, steady field rather than a growing or shrinking one. The apparent drop-off in 2025 and 2026 is a publication-lag artefact, not evidence of declining activity, since publication typically trails filing by about 18 months.
What does US6229913B1 cover and why does it matter?
US6229913B1 is the most-cited record in this dataset at 740 citations, covering methods for determining the three-dimensional shape of an object using active illumination combined with relative blurring between two images caused by defocus. Its citation count reflects long-standing influence on later shape-from-defocus and active-illumination work rather than current filing activity, since older patents accumulate citations simply by having more time in circulation. Anyone working on defocus-based depth sensing should expect to encounter this patent's claim scope early in a freedom-to-operate review.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Machine Vision Lighting and Optics Selection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.