MEMS Accelerometers Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 56.3% concentration. The top 5 assignees account for 80 of the 142 records in scope — more than half the field sits with a handful of filers.
- Filing peaked in 2017. Annual filings hit 12 that year and have trended down since, with the midpoint year 2022 at only 6.
- Claims cluster in one subclass. 99.3% of records carry a G01P velocity-and-acceleration classification, leaving MEMS manufacturing (B81C, 7.0%) and semiconductor integration comparatively thin.
What the MEMS accelerometer patent record shows
MEMS accelerometers sit at the intersection of mechanical sensing and semiconductor fabrication, and the patent record reflects that split. The search underlying this landscape combines device-level claim language — noise density, offset drift over temperature, shock survivability, bandwidth, and package stress — with the core IPC classes for velocity and acceleration sensing, microstructural devices, and gyroscope-adjacent navigation art. That combination surfaces 142 published records dated between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off.
Filing intensity is not evenly spread across the coverage window. Publication figures for the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity, since patent applications typically publish around 18 months after they are filed — a lag worth remembering when reading the tail end of any trend line here.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 142 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings rose to a 2017 peak, then eased
Annual filings reached 12 in 2017, the high point of the window tracked here. By the 2022 midpoint, annual output had fallen to 6, and the curve continues to soften toward the present — consistent with a technology area where core claim territory was staked out early rather than one still in a filing surge.
Claims concentrate in velocity and acceleration sensing
G01P (velocity and acceleration measurement) appears on 99.3% of the 142 records, which is expected given the search scope. The more informative split is beneath it: B81B microstructural-device claims reach 19.0% of records, H10D semiconductor-device claims 12.7%, and B81C MEMS manufacturing process claims only 7.0% — a noticeably thinner layer than the device-level claims sitting above it.
Shares are the percentage of the 142 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on MEMS Accelerometers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about mems accelerometers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
US20220033254A1 — Wide bandwidth MEMS accelerometer for detecting vibrations
A MEMS accelerometer includes a supporting structure, at least one deformable group and one second deformable group, which include, respectively, a first deformable cantilever element and a second deformable cantilever element, which each have a respective first end, which is fixed to the supporting structure, and a respective second end. The first and second deformable groups further include, respectively, a first piezoelectric detection structure and a second piezoelectric detection structure. The MEMS accelerometer further includes a first mobile mass and a second mobile mass, which are fixed, respectively, to the second ends of the first and second deformable cantilever elements.Filed by STMicroelectronics S.R.L., published 2022-02-03.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6199874B1 | Microelectromechanical accelerometer for automotive applications | 298 |
| 2 | US6170332B1 | Micromechanical accelerometer for automotive applications | 239 |
| 3 | US6149190A | Micromechanical accelerometer for automotive applications | 183 |
| 4 | US20070119252A1 | Tri-axis accelerometer | 91 |
| 5 | US6167757B1 | Single-side microelectromechanical capacitive accelerometer and method of making same | 51 |
| 6 | US6966225B1 | Capacitive accelerometer with liquid dielectric | 46 |
| 7 | US8079262B2 | Pendulous accelerometer with balanced gas damping | 44 |
| 8 | US20150276407A1 | Multi-axis integrated inertial sensing device | 40 |
| 9 | US20090107238A1 | Pendulous accelerometer with balanced gas damping | 39 |
| 10 | US7430909B2 | Tri-axis accelerometer | 38 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them; read this table as a map of influence within the searched corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the same dataset, each pointing at a different practical question: who owns the crowded ground, when the crowded ground was staked out, and where the claim space is thinner.
Half the field sits with five filers
The top 5 assignees combined account for 80 of the 142 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 71.1% (101 records). New entrants filing on core capacitive-sensing or shock-survivability claims are filing into ground already dense with prior art from a small group of established players.
The filing curve has already crested
Annual filings peaked at 12 in 2017 and had fallen to 6 by the 2022 midpoint, with the trend continuing to soften. That pattern is more consistent with a maturing claim landscape than an emerging one — most of the foundational architecture claims were filed years ago.
Manufacturing-process claims are thin relative to device claims
Device-level classification (G01P, B81B) covers most of the dataset, but the manufacturing-process class B81C sits at just 7.0% of the 142 records — the same share as G01C navigation-adjacent claims. That gap is a candidate area for process-side claims rather than device architecture.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to mems accelerometers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and who is still moving
The ranked leaders span automotive-grade sensor houses, semiconductor majors and aerospace-instrumentation specialists. Recent-year filing activity across the leading assignees has gone quiet — a pattern worth checking before assuming any one of them is still actively expanding this portfolio.
One filer well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 41 records, more than five times the fifth-place holder's 7 — a gap wide enough to suggest a long-standing, deliberately built portfolio rather than opportunistic filing.
A tighter cluster below the leader
From fifth place down, record counts compress quickly — fifth place holds 7, tenth place holds 4 — meaning the competitive question below the top of the table is less about a single winner and more about a cluster of similarly sized filers.
Leading filers show no latest-year output
Every one of the assignees with visible recent-year momentum data shows 0 records in the latest tracked year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this understates real current activity, but it also means recent competitive signal from public filings alone is limited right now.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Atlantic Inertial Systems Ltd | 0 | — |
| Kionix Inc | 0 | — |
| Analog Devices Inc | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of Michigan | 0 | — |
| Texas Instruments Inc | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc | 0 | — |
| Simmonds Precision Products Inc | 0 | — |
| Rosemount Aerospace Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape data points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or new filing strategy.
Map claim scope against the top holders
With 56.3% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start there rather than across the full ranked list.
Explore assignee claim scope in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
B81C manufacturing-process and G01C navigation-integration claims sit well below device-level coverage — a lower-density area for a first-mover filing.
Run a white-space search in EurekaVerify recent activity beyond publication lag
Zero latest-year output across leading assignees may reflect the 18-month publication lag rather than reduced R&D — worth confirming against non-patent signals.
Track live filing activity in EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset ranks 50 companies by patent family count, with the leading assignee holding 41 of the 142 records in scope — a much larger share than the fifth-place holder's 7. The top 5 assignees combined account for 56.3% of all records, and the top 10 extend that to 71.1%. This concentration means a small group of automotive-sensor, semiconductor and aerospace-instrumentation firms hold most of the claim territory, with a long tail of smaller filers below them.
No, not based on published filings. Annual filings peaked at 12 in 2017, and by the 2022 midpoint had fallen to 6, with the trend continuing to soften toward the present. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any dataset understate real activity, but the multi-year trend before that lag window still points downward rather than upward.
IPC composition data shows device-level classes like G01P and B81B carrying most of the claim volume, while B81C (MEMS manufacturing processes) and G01C (navigation and gyroscope-adjacent integration) each sit at only 7.0% of the 142 records in scope. That gap suggests manufacturing-process claims and multi-axis navigation-grade integration claims are comparatively open relative to core device architecture claims.
US20220033254A1, published 2022-02-03 and assigned to STMicroelectronics S.R.L., describes a wide-bandwidth MEMS accelerometer using piezoelectric cantilever detection structures with two deformable mass elements. It is a representative recent filing in the dataset rather than the single most-cited one; the abstract centers on cantilever geometry and piezoelectric detection rather than capacitive sensing, which is a useful reference point for anyone comparing detection-mechanism approaches in this field.
The most-cited records in this dataset are older automotive-application patents, led by US6199874B1 with 298 citations, followed by US6170332B1 and US6149190A. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so this reflects historical influence on the field's foundational architecture rather than a ranking of current commercial importance.
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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.