Multimodal In-Cabin Interaction Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- 19.7% concentration. The top 5 of 100 ranked assignees hold 75 of 381 records in scope — a moderately concentrated field with room below the leaders.
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. 42 records filed that year against 3 so far in the partial 2026 count, with a documented -61% drop from 28 records in 2021 to 11 in 2024.
- G06F dominates classification. 67.2% of the 381 records carry a G06F digital-data-processing class, far ahead of G06K recognition (12.9%) and B60K vehicle propulsion (8.1%).
Filing growth compares 2021 (28 records) with 2024 (11) — 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 381 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Multimodal in-cabin interaction sits at the intersection of far-field speech recognition, gesture sensing, and the fusion logic that decides which input a vehicle should trust when both arrive at once. The 381 records in scope span classification across driver-assistant voice interfaces, gesture false-trigger suppression, and driver/passenger separation logic — the practical problems that stand between a lab demo and a shipping cabin system.
Filing runs from 2015 through a partial 2026 cut, giving a full decade of activity to compare. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was.
Filing trends and classification density
Two views of the same 381-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses.
A 2018 peak followed by a documented pullback
Annual filings rose to 42 in 2018, the high point of the series, and fell across a well-evidenced three-year span from 28 in 2021 to 11 in 2024 — a -61% move. Years after 2024 are still filling in as publications catch up, so treat the tail of the chart as incomplete rather than as a sharper decline.
Software and recognition classes carry the field
G06F digital-data-processing appears on 67.2% of the 381 records, consistent with fusion and control logic being claimed as software rather than as dedicated hardware. G06K data recognition (12.9%), B60K vehicle propulsion (8.1%), and a cluster of optical, imaging, video and audio-transducer classes each sit in the mid-single digits — evidence that sensing hardware claims are comparatively thin next to the software layer.
Shares are the percentage of the 381 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Multimodal In-Cabin Interaction with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about multimodal in-cabin interaction and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited records
Driver interface with voice and gesture control (US20220139393A1)
A driver interface for use within an automobile provides responses to voice commands issued for example by a driver of the automobile. The interface includes a camera and microphone for capturing image data such as gestures and audio data from the automobile driver. The image data and audio data are processed to extract image and linguistic features from the image and audio data, which image and linguistic features are processed to interpret and infer a meaning of the voice command.Filed by SoundHound AI IP, LLC, published 2022-05-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130346168A1 | Wearable augmented reality eyeglass communication device including mobile phone and mobile computing via virt… | 447 |
| 2 | US20080084400A1 | Touch-gesture control of video media play on handheld media players | 351 |
| 3 | US20170103440A1 | Wearable augmented reality eyeglass communication device including mobile phone and mobile computing via virt… | 287 |
| 4 | US20180062691A1 | Wearable Gesture Control Device & Method | 271 |
| 5 | US20050210419A1 | Gesture control system | 254 |
| 6 | US9153074B2 | Wearable augmented reality eyeglass communication device including mobile phone and mobile computing via virt… | 223 |
| 7 | US20160357262A1 | Smart vehicle | 217 |
| 8 | US20170115742A1 | Wearable augmented reality eyeglass communication device including mobile phone and mobile computing via virt… | 213 |
| 9 | US20140309871A1 | User gesture control of vehicle features | 191 |
| 10 | US20110221669A1 | Gesture control in an augmented reality eyepiece | 181 |
Citation counts reflect a searched corpus and favour older filings; use them as a signal of influence, not of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the dataset that matter more for strategy than the raw counts alone.
Leadership is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 21 records and the fifth-place holder 11, with the top 5 combined at 75 records — 19.7% of the 381 in scope. That leaves roughly four-fifths of the field spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, which is workable territory for a new entrant with a differentiated claim.
The pullback predates the reporting lag
Filings fell from 28 in 2021 to 11 in 2024, a documented and complete three-year comparison. That is a real cooling of new filing activity in the field's core years, distinct from the incomplete 2025-2026 tail which will still fill in as publications catch up.
Software claims outweigh hardware claims
G06F digital-data-processing appears far more often than any sensing-hardware class such as H04R audio transducers (5.5%) or G02B optics (6.6%). Fusion logic and control software are the densest claim territory; dedicated sensor hardware is comparatively open.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to multimodal in-cabin interaction, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies drawn from the 381 records in scope — not a curated top-50 or top-100, but the whole ranking the dataset returns.
A single leader, then a fast drop-off
The top-ranked assignee holds 21 of the 381 records, more than double the tenth-place holder's 7. That gap suggests one organisation has built a genuinely broader portfolio rather than the field being a cluster of near-equal filers.
Co-filing is limited and asymmetric
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and one pair alone accounts for 14 joint records — far ahead of any other combination, most of which show a single shared filing. Co-assignment here looks like isolated corporate-structure links rather than an active collaboration network.
No assignee shows fresh momentum yet
Every assignee checked for recent-year momentum shows zero filings in the latest year, which is consistent with the 18-month publication lag rather than a sign the field has gone quiet. Momentum data will firm up as 2025-2026 filings publish.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Honda Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Edge 3 Technologies Inc. | 0 | — |
| Hubbell Inc. | 0 | — |
| Nokia Corporation | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Pison Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Faurecia Clarion Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Waves Audio Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio building, or partner scouting.
Check freedom-to-operate against the software layer
With 67.2% of records carrying a G06F class, any fusion or control-logic claim should be checked against that dense cluster before drafting, rather than assumed clear because hardware classes look thinner.
Run a claim search in EurekaScope the under-claimed sensing branches
Optical, imaging and audio-transducer classes each sit in the mid-single digits of the 381 records, suggesting more room in dedicated hardware claims than in the software layer above them.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the long tail beyond the ranked leaders
With the top 5 holding only 19.7% of records, most of the field sits with smaller filers. Watching new entrants there may surface competitive signals the leaders won't show.
Monitor assignees in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The dataset ranks 100 assignees across 381 records, with the leading company holding 21 records and the fifth-ranked holder 11. Combined, the top 5 account for 75 records, or 19.7% of the 381 in scope, which is a moderate but not overwhelming concentration. That leaves a substantial long tail of companies with only one or a few filings each, which is worth watching for emerging entrants rather than assuming the leaders have locked up the space.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 42 records and, over a fully documented three-year window, fell from 28 records in 2021 to 11 in 2024 — a -61% change. That decline is real for the 2021-2024 period. Data for 2025 and 2026 is still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so it is too early to read the most recent years as a continued decline rather than a reporting gap.
G06F, the digital-data-processing class, appears on 67.2% of the 381 records, making software and fusion logic the densest claim territory by a wide margin. G06K data recognition follows at 12.9%, with B60K vehicle propulsion, optical systems, image recognition, video communication, vehicle accessories and audio transducers each in the 5-9% range. Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of records, and they should be read as overlapping coverage rather than a strict breakdown.
The classification data points toward dedicated sensing hardware — optics, audio transducers, and imaging — as comparatively under-claimed relative to the dense G06F software cluster. Specific sub-areas such as gesture false-trigger suppression, driver/passenger voice-channel separation, and multimodal fusion latency reduction show up in the search criteria but are thinly represented in the top classification shares. A first claim in one of these areas should focus on the specific sensor-fusion mechanism rather than restating general voice-plus-gesture control, which is already densely claimed.
US20220139393A1, filed by SoundHound AI IP, LLC and published 2022-05-05, describes a driver interface that captures both image data (gestures) and audio data (voice commands) via camera and microphone, then extracts and jointly processes image and linguistic features to infer the meaning of a voice command. It is representative of the field's core pattern: combining a camera and microphone input stream with a fusion-and-inference step, rather than claiming either modality alone. Reviewing its specific claim language is the right starting point before drafting anything that touches driver voice-gesture fusion.
Research Multimodal In-Cabin Interaction in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole multimodal in-cabin interaction corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.