NIR Process Monitoring Probe Design Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filings jumped 450% from 2021 to 2024, the fastest sustained climb in the record, peaking at 37 filings in 2022 before publication lag starts to understate the most recent years.
- The top 5 assignees hold just 26.0% of all 450 records, and the top 10 hold 38.9% — a leader well ahead of the pack, but no single-company lock on the field.
- A61B and G01J classes sit alongside G01N in a third of records, showing probe design claims routinely cross into diagnostic and radiation-measurement territory rather than staying inside pure analytical-chemistry classification.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (22) — 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 450 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of NIR spectroscopy and the physical hardware that makes it work in a live process stream: probe windows, sterile interfaces, optical path geometry, sampling volume, fouling resistance and insertion depth. The search combines NIR-specific terms with these mechanical and interface terms under IPC classes covering optical material analysis, diagnostic measurement and radiation detection, so the scope is deliberately narrower than NIR spectroscopy as a whole — it is about how the probe survives and performs inside the process, not the chemometrics behind the reading.
The 450 records in scope span 2015 through the middle of 2026, giving a decade-plus view of how probe-hardware claims have accumulated as inline and in-line NIR monitoring moved from lab bench to production line, waste stream and downhole environments.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 450 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A decade of accelerating filings, with a caveat on the tail
Annual filings rose from 8 in 2017 to a peak of 37 in 2022, and the 2021-to-2024 span shows +450% growth — from 4 filings to 22. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown.
Probe claims cross into diagnostics and optics, not just analytical chemistry
Every record carries a G01N material-analysis class by construction of the search, but 32.4% of the 450 records also carry A61B (diagnosis & surgery) and 26.7% carry G01J (radiation & light measurement) — evidence that probe hardware claims are frequently drafted alongside clinical or radiometric claims. Smaller shares in G02B optics (5.6%), B27N particle/fibre board (4.7%), E21B drilling (3.8%), G06F data processing (3.6%) and B01L lab apparatus (3.3%) mark narrower, more specialised application niches.
Shares are the percentage of the 450 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on NIR Process Monitoring Probe Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about nir process monitoring probe design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art and a recent representative filing
WO2025104291A1 — Use of NIR spectroscopy in a urea process, and related method and plant
Filed by Casale SA and published 2025-05-22, this application claims the use of Near Infrared spectroscopy — preferably Fourier Transform NIR — to obtain spectra for determining chemical species across stages of a urea process: synthesis, evaporation, crystallisation, waste-water treatment and finishing. It specifically covers quantitative determination of ammonia, carbon dioxide, urea and biuret during the synthesis reaction between carbon dioxide and ammonia.Representative of a broader pattern: NIR probe claims increasingly attach to a named industrial process rather than to generic 'process stream' language.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6280381B1 | Intelligent system for noninvasive blood analyte prediction | 955 |
| 2 | US6788965B2 | Intelligent system for detecting errors and determining failure modes in noninvasive measurement of blood and… | 626 |
| 3 | US6990364B2 | Noninvasive measurement of glucose through the optical properties of tissue | 615 |
| 4 | US6640117B2 | Method and apparatus for minimizing spectral effects attributable to tissue state variations during NIR-based… | 568 |
| 5 | US5879294A | Tissue chromophore measurement system | 412 |
| 6 | US6512937B2 | Multi-tier method of developing localized calibration models for non-invasive blood analyte prediction | 345 |
| 7 | US6591122B2 | Device and method for monitoring body fluid and electrolyte disorders | 299 |
| 8 | US20060020181A1 | Device and method for monitoring body fluid and electrolyte disorders | 232 |
| 9 | US7236811B2 | Device and method for monitoring body fluid and electrolyte disorders | 214 |
| 10 | US7206623B2 | Optical sampling interface system for in vivo measurement of tissue | 185 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of having had longer to accumulate citations; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current filing activity.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the concentration, growth and classification figures above.
A leader, not a lock
The top 5 assignees combine for 26.0% of the 450 records in scope and the top 10 for 38.9%. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants — a field with a clear leader but far from cornered.
Growth is recent and steep
Filings grew from 4 in 2021 to 22 in 2024, a +450% rise over three years, with the annual peak of 37 filings arriving in 2022. This is a field where the claim landscape is still actively being built, not one that has settled.
Probe claims spill into diagnostics and optics
Nearly a third of the 450 records also carry a diagnosis-and-surgery classification, and over a quarter carry a radiation-and-light-measurement classification. Drafting a probe-design claim in isolation from these adjacent categories risks missing prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to nir process monitoring probe design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking below covers 100 companies tracked across the 450 records in scope — it is the whole ranking the dataset returns, not a curated top tier.
A clear front-runner
The leading assignee holds 35 of the 450 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 15 and the tenth-place holder at 10 — a steep drop-off that marks genuine leadership rather than a crowded tie at the top.
A wide base of filers
Beyond the leading names, the ranked list runs to 100 companies, most holding only a handful of records each. That breadth suggests probe-design innovation is coming from many directions — medical device makers, process instrumentation firms and specialty sensor houses alike — rather than from a single dominant lab.
Mostly solo filing
Co-filing is rare in this dataset — only 10 co-assignee pairs are recorded, and the strongest recurring pairs link a single leading assignee with named individual inventors rather than with other companies. This points to in-house R&D as the dominant model rather than joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sensys Medical, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Nova Biomedical Corp. | 0 | — |
| Casco Products Corp. | 0 | — |
| Zyomed Holdings, Inc. | 0 | — |
| INNOVATIVE SCI TOOLS | 0 | — |
| Instrumentation Metrics, Inc. | 0 | — |
| WellDog, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Tomra Sorting GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or new filing.
Map claims against the leading assignee's portfolio
With one assignee holding 35 of 450 records, a freedom-to-operate review should start there before checking the long tail.
Explore assignee claims in Eureka →Track the 2022–2024 filing surge by sub-branch
The +450% growth from 2021 to 2024 is not evenly spread across IPC subclasses; breaking it down by branch shows where competitors are actually placing new claims.
Run a trend breakdown in Eureka →Check white-space chips against live filings
Sub-areas like probe fouling mitigation and sterile-interface seal geometry show activity without a dominant holder — worth a deeper search before drafting.
Search white space in Eureka →Common questions on NIR process monitoring probe design patents
The dataset's leading assignee holds 35 of the 450 records in scope, noticeably ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 15 and the tenth-ranked holder at 10. That said, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 26.0% of all records and the top 10 for 38.9%, so the majority of filings sit outside the ranked leaders in a long tail of smaller filers. Anyone entering this space should check both the leader's portfolio and the surrounding tail, since a single dominant player does not mean the field is closed.
Filings rose from 4 in 2021 to 22 in 2024, a +450% increase over that three-year span, with the highest single-year total so far at 37 filings in 2022. Because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as the trend cooling off. Based on the complete years through 2024, this is an actively growing filing area rather than a mature or declining one.
All 450 records in this dataset carry a G01N material-analysis-and-testing classification by construction of the search, but a substantial share also carry adjacent classes: 32.4% carry A61B (diagnosis and surgery) and 26.7% carry G01J (radiation and light measurement). Smaller but notable shares appear in G02B optical elements (5.6%), B27N particle or fibre board (4.7%), E21B drilling (3.8%), G06F data processing (3.6%) and B01L lab apparatus (3.3%). Because a single record can carry several classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
WO2025104291A1, filed by Casale SA and published in May 2025, claims the use of NIR — preferably Fourier Transform NIR — spectroscopy to determine chemical species such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, urea and biuret across stages of a urea production process including synthesis, evaporation, crystallisation, waste-water treatment and finishing. It ties the spectroscopic method specifically to the named urea reaction chemistry rather than to a generic process stream. Anyone building NIR monitoring into a urea plant should review this filing's exact process-stage language closely, since the claim scope is process-specific rather than a broad hardware claim.
Several sub-areas show filing activity but no single dominant claim holder in this dataset, including probe fouling mitigation coatings, sterile-interface seal geometry, downhole insertion-depth calibration, and NIR applications tied to fibre-board sampling optics or waste-stream finishing processes. These sit alongside, but outside, the dense prior art built up around blood-analyte and tissue-chromophore measurement, which dominates the most-cited records. A first claim drafted around one of these narrower branches is less likely to run into the entrenched citation clusters that anchor the top of this field.
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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.