Machine Vision Patents: Who Leads and Where the Filing Concentrates
62.7% of all 161 records sit with just five assignees, and 79.5% with ten — this field is unusually top-heavy for its size. Filings rose from 18 in 2017 to a peak of 30 in 2021, then declined to 14 by 2024 — a -53% move over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the usual publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
- 1DELL PROD LP31
- 2ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS INC22
- 3BRIGHT MACHINES INC19
- 4VISMUNDA18
- 5ROCKWELL AUTOMATION TECH INC11
See the full machine vision patent landscape 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 on this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in machine vision for industrial inspection?
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 35 companies, and it is heavily concentrated: the top five together hold 62.7% of the 161 records in scope, and the top ten hold 79.5%. The leading assignee alone accounts for 31 records, well ahead of fifth place at 11. This means a small number of firms occupy most of the claim space, while the remaining ranked companies each hold only a handful of filings, often tied to a specific application.
Is machine vision patent filing activity growing or slowing down?
Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 30 records and had fallen to 14 by 2024, a -53% move over that three-year span. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of a continuing decline. The safest reading is that 2021 was a high point and 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as a complete count.
What technology areas dominate machine vision patent claims?
Image data processing (IPC class G06T) is the largest single category at 23.0% of the 161 records, followed by general digital data processing (G06F) at 20.5% and control and regulating systems (G05B) at 16.8%. Semiconductor devices, conveying and material handling, image recognition, and printed-circuit assembly classes each sit near or above 9%, showing that vision claims in this field are frequently tied to a specific hardware or process context rather than filed as standalone algorithms.
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 Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.