Metalens Optical Modulator Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- No dominant filer. recent-year momentum shows every tracked assignee, including Huawei and Washington University, at zero filings in the latest year — this is not a race with a visible leader yet.
- Filing growth has stalled. activity ran 8 filings in 2017, a midpoint of 7 in 2022, and a peak of 25 in 2025 — the curve is flat-to-declining rather than compounding.
- Claims cluster outside pure optics. lighting and circuit subclasses (F21V, H05B, F21Y) together account for more records than the core modulation subclass G02F, showing the fight is as much about integration as about the metasurface itself.
Filing growth compares 2021 (15 records) with 2024 (12) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 118 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the metalens optical modulator patent set actually covers
Metalens optical modulators sit at the intersection of flat optics and active tuning: instead of a fixed dielectric metasurface bending light with a static phase profile, these designs add a mechanism — electrical bias, liquid crystal, MEMS actuation, or elastic strain — to change that profile after fabrication. The search set spans 118 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026, concentrated in G02B (optical elements) and G02F (optical control and modulation), with a substantial secondary cluster in lighting-device and circuit classifications that suggests many filings are protecting integration into illumination or imaging modules rather than the metasurface physics alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2025 at 25 records after a long, flat stretch through the late 2010s and early 2020s. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 figure is necessarily incomplete and should not be read as a decline in real filing behaviour.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 118-family set: how filing activity moved year over year, and where those filings land across the IPC classification system.
A flat curve with one recent peak
Filings opened at 8 in 2017, sat near a midpoint of 7 in 2022, then rose to a peak of 25 in 2025. That shape is consistent with a technology still searching for its dominant design rather than one scaling into volume production.
Optics and modulation lead, but lighting integration is close behind
G02B (48 records) and G02F (33) confirm the core optical and modulation claims, but F21V, H05B and F21Y together approach or exceed that combined total, meaning a large share of the filed claim space is about packaging tunable metasurfaces into lighting and display hardware rather than the metasurface element in isolation.
Shares are the percentage of the 118 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metalens Optical Modulator with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about metalens optical modulator and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this set
Electrically tunable metasurface — Huawei
The patent discloses an electrically tunable metasurface built from concentric scatterer rings of bow-tie radiator elements, each ring addressed by its own electrode so a biasing voltage can independently modulate the propagation characteristics of an incident plane wave.Filed by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.; published 2024-05-14.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20210112647A1 | Angularly varying light emitting device with an imager | 272 |
| 2 | US20180316090A1 | Liquid-crystal reconfigurable multi-beam phased array | 107 |
| 3 | US20180292644A1 | Tunable Elastic Dielectric Metasurface Lenses | 74 |
| 4 | US20180246262A1 | Low-contrast silicon nitride-based metasurfaces | 59 |
| 5 | US11184967B2 | Angularly varying light emitting device with an imager | 45 |
| 6 | US20220086988A1 | Angularly varying light emitting device with a light sensor | 35 |
| 7 | WO2017044637A1 | Low contrast silicon nitride-based metasurfaces | 34 |
| 8 | US20190383982A1 | Metasurface on optical fiber and related method | 26 |
| 9 | US10365416B2 | Low-contrast metasurfaces | 23 |
| 10 | US20230208104A1 | Wavelength tunable metasurface based external cavity laser | 18 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat them as a signal of prior influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read against filing dates and classification codes.
Growth is recent and unproven
The jump from a 2022 midpoint of 7 filings to a 2025 peak of 25 is the only strong signal of acceleration in the dataset. It arrived late enough that it is not yet reflected in any assignee's multi-year momentum, and the partial 2026 count cannot confirm whether it continues.
Optics claims outnumber modulation claims
More records sit in G02B (optical elements and systems) than in G02F (optical control and modulation itself), which suggests a meaningful share of applicants are claiming the lens geometry and optical path rather than the tuning mechanism.
No filer is currently pulling ahead
Every assignee named in recent-year momentum data, from Huawei to Washington University to Singapore's A*STAR, shows zero filings in the latest year. That flat pattern across otherwise active organisations points to a field between filing cycles rather than one being abandoned.
Filing is US-centric with a PCT tail
The United States receiving office accounts for the majority of records, with WIPO PCT filings a distant second and Europe, Israel, Austria and China each contributing single-digit-to-low-double-digit counts, indicating most applicants are not yet pursuing broad multi-jurisdiction coverage.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metalens optical modulator, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The assignee set spans universities, national research institutes and at least one major telecom-equipment vendor, but recent-year momentum is flat across all of them, so ranking by cumulative family count is a better read than ranking by recent activity.
Telecom-equipment interest in tunable metasurfaces
Huawei's electrically tunable metasurface filing, addressed ring-by-ring with independent bias electrodes, signals interest in metasurfaces for beam-steering or antenna-adjacent applications rather than consumer imaging alone.
US research institutions hold a meaningful share
Multiple US universities appear as assignees, consistent with the concentration of receiving-office activity in the United States, and suggesting foundational metasurface research is still being patented alongside commercial integration work.
Cross-border institute-industry collaboration exists but is thin
The single strongest co-assignee pairing links Singapore's A*STAR with Austria's AMS AG, an occurrence count of one, meaning collaborative filings are the exception rather than the pattern in this dataset.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| COLEMAN ZANE | 0 | -100% |
| University of Washington | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) | 0 | -100% |
| Baylor University | 0 | — |
| Baden-Württemberg Stiftung | 0 | — |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | 0 | — |
| ASML Netherlands B.V. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or identifying a filing gap.
Run a subclass-scoped FTO search
With G02B outweighing G02F, a freedom-to-operate check should separately clear the optical-element claims and the modulation-mechanism claims rather than treating the two as one search.
Explore in EurekaTrack the 2025 filing spike into 2026-2027
The peak year of 25 filings arrived late in the dataset's window; watching whether it holds once 2026 publications catch up will indicate whether this is a genuine inflection or a one-year cluster.
Explore in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches
MEMS actuation and strain-tunable dielectric approaches show thinner claim density than electrical biasing, making them candidates for a first-mover filing rather than a crowded one.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about metalens optical modulator patents
In this dataset it refers to a flat metasurface lens combined with an active tuning mechanism, such as electrical biasing, liquid crystal, MEMS actuation, or elastic strain, that lets the device change its optical response after fabrication rather than being fixed at manufacture. Claims typically cover either the physical scatterer geometry, the tuning mechanism, or the integration of both into a lighting, imaging or antenna module. The IPC spread across G02B, G02F, F21V and H01Q reflects that a single device can be claimed from several different angles depending on what the applicant wants to protect.
The assignee set includes corporate filers such as Huawei alongside academic institutions including Washington University, Baylor University, and Harvard, plus research institutes such as Singapore's A*STAR. No single assignee shows positive momentum in the latest tracked year, which makes this a fragmented field rather than one with an obvious incumbent to watch. Ranking by cumulative filings is a more reliable read than ranking by recent activity given the flat year-over-year picture across the board.
The trend is best described as flat with a late spike: filings ran around 7-8 per year through 2017 and the 2022 midpoint, then rose to a peak of 25 in 2025. Because patent publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, the near-zero count shown for 2026 understates real activity and should not be read as a drop-off. Whether the 2025 peak represents a genuine inflection point will only be clear once 2026 and 2027 filings are fully published.
Relative to the dense core claim space in G02B optical elements and G02F modulation control, sub-areas such as MEMS-actuated tuning, elastic or strain-tunable dielectric lenses, and photolithography-specific fabrication methods for tunable metasurfaces show thinner representation in this dataset. That does not guarantee those branches are unclaimed elsewhere, but it does suggest they carry less immediate collision risk than filing directly against electrically-biased scatterer-ring designs like Huawei's. Any first filing there should be checked against the broader G03F and H01S counts before assuming clear space.
Not necessarily. Citation counts accumulate over time within a searched corpus, so older records such as the angularly-varying light-emitting device filing with 272 citations will naturally outrank newer ones simply by having been available longer to cite. High citation counts are a reasonable signal of historical influence on how the field's language and claim structures developed, but a recent filing with few citations may still be commercially or legally more relevant to a current freedom-to-operate question.
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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.