MEMS & NEMS Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
MEMS and NEMS patents: mapping who holds the claim space and where it is still open
Concentrated but not locked up. the ranked leader holds 159 records and the top 5 combined account for just 19.3% of all 3,591 records in scope — no single filer controls the field. Filings ran from 159 in 2017 to a peak of 257 in 2018, then eased. The 2021-to-2024 window shows a clean, comparable decline — 212 down to 150, a 29% drop — because both years are past the publication lag and safe to compare directly.
- 1KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS NV4.4%
- 2MAGIC LEAP INC4.0%
- 3PHILIPS IMAGE GUIDED THERAPY CORP3.7%
- 4JOHNSON & JOHNSON VISION CARE INC3.7%
- 5NAVICO INC3.5%
See the full mems & nems 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 about MEMS and NEMS patents
Who holds the most MEMS and NEMS patents?
Across this 3,591-record corpus, the ranked leader holds 159 records, but no single company dominates the field: the top 5 assignees combined account for only 19.3% of all records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 32.2%. The ranking covers 100 companies, so it should be read as a broad field map rather than a short list of dominant players. Names span medical imaging and surgical navigation firms alongside semiconductor and automotive-sensor suppliers, reflecting how widely MEMS sensing has been embedded into other product categories.
Is MEMS and NEMS patent filing growing or slowing down?
Filing peaked in 2018 at 257 records and has pulled back since; the most recent fully comparable window, 2021 to 2024, shows a 29% decline from 212 to 150. Figures for 2025 and 2026 currently look lower still, but that is expected: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the newest years are always undercounted at the point of measurement. A fair read is a cooling trend through 2024, with the last two years not yet settled.
What technology areas dominate MEMS and NEMS patent claims?
A61B, the diagnosis-and-surgery class, appears on 28.5% of all 3,591 records, making it the single largest category by a wide margin. B81B, the microstructural-devices class most directly associated with MEMS fabrication, sits at 8.5%, on par with G01N material testing, G01S positioning and H01L semiconductor devices. This spread indicates that most MEMS and NEMS claims in this corpus describe sensing components embedded in larger systems, particularly medical devices, rather than standalone MEMS hardware.
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 MEMS & NEMS 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.