Multileaf Collimator Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings have fallen sharply from their peak. 2021's 147 filings dropped to 37 by 2024, a 75% decline over that three-year span, though 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
- Ownership is concentrated but not locked up. The top 5 assignees hold 25.6% of all 2,437 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 38.4% — leaving most of the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- The field leans hard on radiation-therapy classifications. A61N covers 53.1% of records, more than double the next class, showing that claim activity is still centred on the therapy delivery mechanism itself rather than adjacent measurement or software layers.
Filing growth compares 2021 (147 records) with 2024 (37) — 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 2,437 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Multileaf collimators shape radiation beams by moving individual leaves into and out of the field, and the patent activity tracked here spans leaf positioning accuracy, interleaf leakage control, tongue-and-groove effects, and the quality-assurance routines used to verify leaf motion against a treatment plan. The search string pulls together documents that combine a beam-shaping mechanism with a specific control or verification concept, rather than every radiotherapy patent in general. That combination is deliberate: it separates mechanical and dosimetric claims on the collimator itself from the broader treatment-planning and imaging literature that surrounds it.
2,437 records sit in scope across a 2015–2026 window, drawn primarily from US, EPO, WIPO, German, Austrian and UK filing offices. The assignee ranking behind this page covers 100 companies, counted by patent family, which is the fairer unit here because it removes the inflation caused by continuations and multi-jurisdiction refiling of the same invention.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,437-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how the underlying technology splits across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak followed by a steady pullback
Annual filings peaked at 185 in 2017 and had fallen to 37 by 2024 — a decline verified by the 2021-to-2024 comparison of 147 down to 37, a 75% drop. The 2025 and 2026 figures (down to 9 for the partial year) should be read as still filling in rather than as evidence the field has gone quiet, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Technology composition: therapy delivery dominates, adjacent layers trail
A61N (electrotherapy and radiation therapy) appears on 53.1% of the 2,437 records, far ahead of A61B diagnosis-and-surgery claims at 21.0% and G21K particle-and-radiation handling at 11.0%. Optical systems (G02B, 9.6%), material testing (G01N, 7.3%), radiation measurement (G01T, 5.6%), data processing (G06F, 5.0%) and even welding/brazing (B23K, 4.8%) each carry a meaningful but much smaller share — a reminder that these figures sum past 100% because most records carry more than one classification.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,437 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Multileaf Collimators and Beam Shaping with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about multileaf collimators and beam shaping and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA foundational quality-assurance patent, and the citation leaders around it
US6891178B2 — Method for checking positional accuracy of the leaves of a multileaf collimator
The patent describes a quality-assurance method for verifying multileaf collimator leaf positioning: producing two different radiation fields, measuring the dose difference or ratio between them with a dosimeter, and comparing that measurement against a known standard to determine positional accuracy of the leaves.Filed by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, granted 2005-05-10.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160026253A1 | Methods and systems for creating virtual and augmented reality | 3,434 |
| 2 | US20130278631A1 | 3D positioning of augmented reality information | 2,102 |
| 3 | US20150016777A1 | Planar waveguide apparatus with diffraction element(s) and system employing same | 2,062 |
| 4 | US20130127980A1 | Video display modification based on sensor input for a see-through near-to-eye display | 1,897 |
| 5 | US20120075168A1 | Eyepiece with uniformly illuminated reflective display | 1,186 |
| 6 | US9671566B2 | Planar waveguide apparatus with diffraction element(s) and system employing same | 991 |
| 7 | US20140063055A1 | Ar glasses specific user interface and control interface based on a connected external device type | 893 |
| 8 | US20120249797A1 | Head-worn adaptive display | 812 |
| 9 | US20150309263A2 | Planar waveguide apparatus with diffraction element(s) and system employing same | 810 |
| 10 | US20120218301A1 | See-through display with an optical assembly including a wedge-shaped illumination system | 787 |
Citation counts favour older, more-searched documents rather than currently active claims — treat the ranking as a map of influence, not of present-day priority.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs of the data that matter more for strategy than the raw counts alone.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The top 5 assignees combined account for 25.6% of all 2,437 records in scope, and the top 10 combined for 38.4%. That leaves roughly six in ten records spread across a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants — a field with an identifiable leadership group but still open to a well-differentiated new claim.
Volume has pulled back hard from its 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 185 in 2017 and the verified comparison window shows 147 filings in 2021 falling to 37 in 2024, a 75% decline. Recent-year totals below that are still incomplete because of the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so the most recent years should not be read as proof the field has gone cold.
Claims cluster on the delivery mechanism itself
A61N radiation-therapy classifications appear on 53.1% of records, more than double the next-largest class (A61B diagnosis and surgery at 21.0%). Optical, measurement and data-processing classes each sit under 10%, suggesting the mechanical and dosimetric core of the collimator is where most drafting effort has gone rather than the software or sensing layers around it.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to multileaf collimators and beam shaping, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Varian Medical Systems International AG | Varian Medical Systems, Inc. | 53 |
| LEE W DAVIS | BENNETT JAMES P | 49 |
| LEE W DAVIS | AMATO MARK R | 49 |
| LEE W DAVIS | MICHAUD SUSAN L | 40 |
| LEE W DAVIS | RENO JILLIAN | 31 |
| LEE W DAVIS | RUEBEL NICK | 27 |
| Ion Beam Applications SA | RaySearch Laboratories AB | 20 |
| Varian Medical Systems, Inc. | Varian Medical Systems Particle Therapy GmbH | 12 |
The dataset records 10 co-assignee pairs, with the strongest pairings clustered around a small number of related corporate entities and named inventors — evidence of tight internal collaboration rather than broad cross-company joint filing.
Who is filing, and where activity has slowed
Recent-year momentum figures should be read cautiously given publication lag, but the pattern across leading assignees is consistent: activity that was concentrated in the mid-2010s has thinned out at the very top of the ranking in the latest tracked year.
A clear single leader, then a steep drop-off
The leading assignee holds 209 records, well ahead of fifth place at 76 and tenth place at 54. That gap between first and fifth place is the clearest evidence of a genuine leadership position rather than a crowded top tier.
Even top filers are slowing in the latest tracked year
The leading assignee shows only 1 filing in the latest year, down 50% year over year, and several other leading assignees show zero filings in the same window. This is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback rather than a company-specific retreat.
Most of the field sits outside the top 10
With the top 10 assignees holding 38.4% of all 2,437 records, the remaining 61.6% is spread across the rest of the 100-company ranking and unranked filers. That is room for a differentiated entrant to stake a position without displacing an incumbent.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Varian Medical Systems, Inc. | 1 | -50% |
| Varian Medical Systems International AG | 0 | — |
| Elekta AB | 0 | -100% |
| Magic Leap, Inc. | 0 | — |
| LEE W DAVIS | 0 | — |
| ViewRay Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Osterhout Group, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Mevion Medical Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with settled leadership at the top and open space below it. Two directions make sense from here.
Map the white space before drafting
Under-claimed branches like interleaf leakage compensation and modulation-complexity QA sit next to dense A61N claim territory rather than inside it. A freedom-to-operate check focused specifically on those adjacent branches is more useful than a broad novelty search across the whole collimator space.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the leadership group's next moves, not just their totals
The leading assignee's year-over-year momentum has slowed sharply, which is more informative than its cumulative 209-record total. Tracking filing behaviour by assignee over the next few publication cycles will show whether that slowdown is field-wide or company-specific.
Track assignee momentum in EurekaCommon questions about multileaf collimator patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 209 records, well ahead of fifth place at 76 and tenth place at 54. The top 5 assignees combined hold 25.6% of all 2,437 records in scope, and the top 10 combined hold 38.4%. That leaves a majority of the field spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so leadership at the very top does not translate into control of the whole space.
No — filing peaked at 185 in 2017 and has declined since, with a verified drop from 147 filings in 2021 to 37 in 2024, a 75% decrease over that span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look even lower, but that is expected because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years are still incomplete rather than genuinely quieter. 2024 is the most recent year that can be read as a complete picture.
The core of the field sits in A61N electrotherapy and radiation-therapy classifications, which appear on 53.1% of the 2,437 records in scope. A61B diagnosis-and-surgery claims (21.0%) and G21K particle-and-radiation handling (11.0%) are the next largest groups, with optical systems, material testing, radiation measurement, data processing and even welding/brazing each contributing smaller but non-trivial shares. Because records can carry multiple classifications, these percentages add up to more than 100%.
US6891178B2, granted to the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University in 2005, claims a quality-assurance method for checking positional accuracy of multileaf collimator leaves. The method produces two different radiation fields, measures a dose difference or ratio between them with a dosimeter, and compares that measurement against a known standard to determine leaf positioning error. It is framed as a routine QA check rather than a collimator design itself, so it primarily affects verification workflows rather than the mechanical hardware.
The densest claim territory is the A61N radiation-therapy core, so the more open ground sits in adjacent, lower-density branches: real-time interleaf leakage compensation, modulation-complexity scoring built into QA routines, and leaf-motion sensing fused directly with dose measurement all show comparatively lighter filing density in this dataset. These are technically adjacent to the crowded collimator core rather than disconnected from it, which is what makes them workable entry points rather than speculative detours.
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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.