Millimeter Wave Beamforming Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak. 217 families that year against 7 filed in the most recent partial year — publication lag explains part of the drop, but the mid-decade plateau at 155 (2022) says the pull-back started before that.
- The largest holders are pulling back at once. Qualcomm's filings are down 88% year-on-year and several other major holders — Apple, InterDigital, Intel among them — show 0 filings in the latest year, a synchronized slowdown rather than one firm's retreat.
- Antenna and waveguide hardware trail the digital layer. H01Q (antennas, 543 records) and H01P (waveguides, 56) sit well behind H04B (transmission, 1,278) and H04W (network protocols, 729) — the physical beam-steering hardware is comparatively under-filed next to the signalling layer built on top of it.
Filing growth compares 2021 (210 records) with 2024 (46) — 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 1,757 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Millimeter wave beamforming systems concentrate patent activity around hybrid beamforming architectures, phase shifters and beam-steering control, the mechanisms that let a phased array focus RF energy despite the high path loss and blockage sensitivity that define mmWave links. The corpus spans 1,757 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawing on IPC classes for transmission systems, antennas, wireless networks and radar-adjacent positioning.
Filings cluster in transmission and network-protocol classifications rather than pure antenna hardware, which suggests most claim activity is happening at the signal-processing and control-algorithm layer rather than in the physical array itself. Receiving-office data shows the United States as the dominant filing venue, with Europe, WIPO/PCT filings, China and India forming a secondary tier.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A peak in 2020, then a plateau and decline
Filings ran at 203 in 2017, rose to a peak of 217 in 2020, and had fallen back to 155 by the 2022 midpoint. The 2026 figure of 7 is a partial-year count and should not be read as a collapse — publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the last one to two years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. Even allowing for that lag, the shape from 2020 onward reads as deceleration, not growth.
Transmission and network classes dominate over pure antenna hardware
H04B (transmission, general) accounts for 1,278 records and H04W (wireless networks) for 729, together dwarfing H01Q (antennas, 543) and H01P (waveguides and microwave elements, 56). G06N (AI-based computing) appears in only 20 records, a small but notable marker of where beam-management algorithms are just beginning to be claimed.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,757 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Millimeter Wave Beamforming Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about millimeter wave beamforming systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a representative filing
Switchable reflective phase shifter for millimeter wave applications (US20220137209A1)
The filing discloses a switchable reflective phase shifter built from a phase shift network with multiple switches. Bias voltages from a control module activate different phase subranges, and a reflective phase shifter generates the phase shift within whichever subrange is active.Assigned to TRANSACTIONSIP LLC, published 2022-05-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200091608A1 | Wireless communication technology, apparatuses, and methods | 596 |
| 2 | US20100119234A1 | Millimeter wave transceiving system and reflecting plate | 495 |
| 3 | US5427988A | Ceramic ferroelectric composite material – BSTO-MgO | 467 |
| 4 | US10051488B1 | Dual mode communications device with remote device feedback and methods for use therewith | 449 |
| 5 | US20120206299A1 | Millimeter-wave communications using a reflector | 366 |
| 6 | US10244408B1 | Dual mode communications device with null steering and methods for use therewith | 321 |
| 7 | US20190123442A1 | Dual mode communications device with remote radio head and methods for use therewith | 321 |
| 8 | US6016313A | System and method for broadband millimeter wave data communication | 316 |
| 9 | US5472935A | Tuneable microwave devices incorporating high temperature superconducting and ferroelectric films | 312 |
| 10 | WO2019050752A1 | Dual mode communications device with remote radio head and methods for use therewith | 307 |
Citation counts favor older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read this as a map of influence within the searched corpus, not a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field is headed
Four read-throughs from the filing data, IPC composition and assignee momentum figures above.
The slowdown predates the reporting lag
2022's midpoint figure of 155 already sat well below the 2020 peak, meaning the decline started before the most recent, publication-lag-affected years even entered the count. This looks like a maturing claim space rather than a data artefact.
The largest holders are stepping back together
Qualcomm's filings dropped sharply and several peer holders show zero filings in the latest year. A synchronized pull-back across the top of the ranking is a different signal than one company exiting — it suggests the core architecture claims are largely staked out.
Signal processing outpaces antenna hardware
Transmission-layer classifications carry more than double the filing volume of antenna classifications. Physical beam-steering hardware — the array elements themselves — has comparatively more room than the control and signalling logic sitting above it.
Co-filing is rare and mostly university-linked
The strongest co-assignee pairing links a major carrier with a research university, filed five times together. Most other pairings appear once or twice, indicating that joint filing is the exception rather than the norm in this space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to millimeter wave beamforming systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is still active, and who has stepped back
Momentum data shows a field where the largest historical filers have slowed sharply, opening room at the edges even as the core architecture claims stay concentrated.
Qualcomm
Still the most active large-scale filer in the latest year, but down sharply from prior years — a slowdown, not an exit.
Apple, InterDigital, Intel
Each shows zero filings in the latest tracked year after previously active periods, consistent with a broader pause across large holders rather than a single company's retreat.
AT&T and University of Notre Dame
The strongest joint-filing relationship in the dataset links a network operator with an academic research partner, a pattern distinct from the largely solo filing seen elsewhere.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 1 | -88% |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Cheerchip Enterprise Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Sony Group Corporation | 0 | — |
| Movandi Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing data points to a field with concentrated core claims and a cooling top tier. Two directions follow naturally from that.
Check freedom-to-operate on control-layer claims
With H04B and H04W carrying most of the filing volume, a design that touches beam-management algorithms or hybrid beamforming control logic sits closer to dense prior art than one focused on antenna hardware alone.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaWatch whether the pull-back reverses
Several major holders show zero filings in the latest year. Whether that is a genuine pause or a publication-lag artefact will become clear as the next 12-18 months of filings surface.
Track assignee filing activity in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Filing activity across this corpus is concentrated among a small group of large wireless and chipset companies, with Qualcomm remaining the most active large-scale filer in the most recent tracked year even though its filing rate has fallen sharply year-on-year. Several other historically major holders, including Apple, InterDigital and Intel, show zero filings in that same latest year. This pattern points to a field where the largest players staked out core architecture claims earlier and have since slowed new filing, rather than one where a single company currently dominates fresh activity.
The data shows growth is flat to declining. Filings peaked in 2020 at 217 and had already fallen to 155 by the 2022 midpoint, well before the most recent years where publication lag naturally understates the count. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years in any such dataset will look thinner than they eventually prove to be, but the decline visible from 2020 onward predates that effect and looks like a genuine slowdown in new filing.
Transmission-layer and network-protocol classifications carry the largest share of filings, with H04B (general transmission) covering 1,278 records and H04W (wireless networks) covering 729. Antenna-specific claims under H01Q total 543, and waveguide and microwave-element claims under H01P total just 56. This means the signal-processing and control logic that drives a phased array is more heavily claimed than the physical antenna and waveguide hardware carrying the signal, which is a useful distinction when scoping a freedom-to-operate review.
This filing, assigned to TRANSACTIONSIP LLC and published in 2022, discloses a switchable reflective phase shifter for millimeter wave applications. Its core mechanism is a phase shift network with multiple switches that activate different phase subranges in response to bias voltages from a control module, with a reflective phase shifter generating the actual phase shift within whichever subrange is currently active. Anyone building a switchable, bias-voltage-controlled reflective phase-shifting architecture in the mmWave band should review this claim set closely before finalizing a design.
Relative to the dense filing around transmission and network-layer claims, a few branches show comparatively thin coverage: AI-assisted beam management sits at only 20 records under G06N despite growing interest in machine-learning-driven beam selection, and waveguide-integrated phase shift elements under H01P total just 56 records. Blockage-aware beam recovery protocols also appear less densely claimed than the core beam-steering and path-loss mitigation techniques. These are not guarantees of an open field, but they are areas where filing density is markedly lower than in the core architecture claims, making them worth a closer look for new filing strategy.
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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.
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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.