Optical Components Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 7.1% of all 257,894 records sit with the top five assignees combined — a wide field with no single dominant filer.
- Filings fell 35% from 2021 to 2024 (1,174 to 760), the last span the data treats as complete once publication lag is accounted for.
- G02B optical elements lead at 2.8% of records, but no single IPC subclass reaches even 3% — claim activity is spread thin across adjacent classes.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,174 records) with 2024 (760) — 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 257,894 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset covers 257,894 published records at the intersection of optical components and downstream applications such as image sensing, feature detection, object recognition, image reconstruction, light sourcing and waveguide structures. The search combines optical-component terminology with these functional anchors, so the corpus skews toward components that do work in a system rather than optics described in isolation. Records span filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with publication lag of roughly 18 months meaning the most recent one to two years are still filling in.
The picture that emerges is a wide field rather than a concentrated one: the leader holds 6,269 records, but the top ten combined still account for only 12.0% of all records in scope. That leaves a long tail of assignees each filing in narrow slices of the same broad component space.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 257,894-record corpus: filings by year, and where records sit across IPC subclasses. Because a record can carry several IPC codes, the subclass shares add up to more than the record total — read each share against the 257,894-record denominator, not against each other.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 896 in 2017 to a peak of 1,487 in 2020, then eased to 760 by 2024 — a 35% decline across the 2021-to-2024 span, the last period treated as complete. 2025 and 2026 figures are shown but understated by publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G02B (optical elements & systems) leads at 2.8% of records, followed by H04N (pictorial communication) at 1.5% and A61B (diagnosis & surgery) at 1.0%. The remaining subclasses — material analysis, lighting components, photographic apparatus, semiconductor devices and lasers — each sit at or below 0.9%, indicating that no single downstream application dominates optical-component claim activity.
Shares are the percentage of the 257,894 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Components & Systems Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about optical components & systems patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative record in the corpus
Image sensor wherein focus of lens of an optical component misaligns a center of a photodiode
An image sensor includes a photodiode array having a plurality of photodiodes, a grid disposed over the photodiode array, and a plurality of optical components disposed over the grid and corresponding to the plurality of apertures, respectively. The grid defines a plurality of apertures corresponding to the plurality of photodiodes, respectively. The optical components includes a first optical component above a first photodiode of the plurality of photodiodes, the first optical component includes at least one lens and provides at least one focus on the first photodiode, in which the focus of the lens of the first optical component misaligns a center of the first photodiode, in a plan view.Filed by Visera Technologies, published 2025-04-22 — illustrates the current claim style around deliberately offsetting per-pixel micro-optics rather than centering them.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190201104A1 | Surgical HUB spatial awareness to determine devices in operating theater | 1,666 |
| 2 | US20040105264A1 | Multiple Light-Source Illuminating System | 1,261 |
| 3 | US6832725B2 | Optical reader comprising multiple color illumination | 1,233 |
| 4 | US20160270656A1 | Methods and systems for diagnosing and treating health ailments | 1,201 |
| 5 | US20120075168A1 | Eyepiece with uniformly illuminated reflective display | 1,186 |
| 6 | US11026751B2 | Display of alignment of staple cartridge to prior linear staple line | 1,134 |
| 7 | US20120270305A1 | Systems, methods, and apparatuses to image a sample for biological or chemical analysis | 1,072 |
| 8 | US5756981A | Optical scanner for reading and decoding one- and-two-dimensional symbologies at variable depths of field inc… | 1,065 |
| 9 | US20200284883A1 | Component for a lidar sensor system, lidar sensor system, lidar sensor device, method for a lidar sensor syst… | 1,018 |
| 10 | US20060132747A1 | Optical element for an illumination system | 938 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus. Older filings accumulate citations over more years, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than 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 indicate
Three patterns stand out once the concentration figures, filing trend and IPC composition are read together.
No single filer controls the field
Even the leader's 6,269 records represent a small slice of the total corpus, and the top ten combined reach only 12.0% of all records in scope. That leaves most of the corpus with a long tail of assignees each holding a narrow position.
Filings have pulled back from their 2020 peak
Activity peaked at 1,487 filings in 2020 and dropped to 760 by 2024, the last year treated as complete. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures will revise upward and should not be read as confirming a further decline.
Claim activity is dispersed, not stacked
The leading IPC subclass, G02B, covers only 2.8% of records, and every other subclass in the composition sits below 1.5%. That spread suggests optical-component claims are being filed against many different downstream applications rather than piling up in one.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical components & systems patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | Philips Intellectual Property & Standards GmbH | 22 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | California Institute of Technology | 19 |
| Illumina, Inc. | Illumina Cambridge Ltd. | 9 |
| Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | SINGER WOLFGANG | 7 |
| Sony Group Corporation | The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York | 7 |
| Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | Carl Zeiss SMS GmbH | 5 |
| Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | MAUL MANFRED | 5 |
| Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | HAINZ JOACHIM | 5 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairings linking corporate parents to their own subsidiaries or divisions rather than pairing unrelated competitors — a pattern typical of internal IP structuring rather than joint development.
Who is filing, and where activity is slowing
The ranking spans 100 companies, from a leader at 6,269 records down through a long tail of single- and low-digit filers. Recent-year momentum figures should be read cautiously given publication lag, but the direction across nearly every tracked assignee is downward in the latest partial year.
One large filer, wide margin over fifth place
The leader's 6,269 records sit well above fifth place at 2,804 and tenth place at 2,334, but even that gap does not translate into field-wide control given the 257,894-record base.
Latest-year filings are down across tracked assignees
Every tracked assignee in the momentum data shows a year-on-year decline in the latest year, ranging from a 50% drop to a full 100% drop to zero filings. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, some of this reflects filings not yet published rather than an actual pullback.
Cross-filing is mostly intra-group, not inter-company
The strongest co-assignee pairings connect a parent to its own IP-holding subsidiary or a research partner, rather than linking two independent competitors. That points to internal filing structure more than to joint ventures in this space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 4 | -82% |
| Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | 3 | -67% |
| Seiko Epson Corporation | 1 | -80% |
| Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC | 1 | -50% |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| ASML Netherlands B.V. | 0 | — |
| Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | 0 | -100% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying open filing space.
Check freedom-to-operate against the dense subclasses
G02B and H04N carry the highest record shares in this corpus. Before filing new optical-component claims tied to imaging or display applications, run a focused search against those two subclasses specifically.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack momentum among the leading assignees
Latest-year filing counts are down across nearly every tracked leader, but publication lag makes this provisional. Set up ongoing monitoring rather than relying on a single snapshot.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaProbe the under-claimed adjacent branches
Sub-areas like waveguide-integrated laser coupling and multi-aperture illumination control sit outside the leading IPC subclasses. These are worth a closer claim-scope check before committing to a filing strategy.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The ranking covers 100 assignees, with the leader holding 6,269 records and a clear step down to fifth place at 2,804 and tenth place at 2,334. Even so, the top five combined account for only 7.1% of all 257,894 records in scope, and the top ten reach 12.0%. That means the field has a visible leader but no single company controls a majority position, so competitive tracking needs to cover a wide set of mid-tier filers, not just the top names.
Filings peaked in 2020 at 1,487 and fell to 760 by 2024, a 35% decline over that 2021-to-2024 span, which is the most recent period the data treats as complete. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the lower counts shown for 2025 and 2026 are provisional and will revise upward as more records publish. The honest read is a pullback from a 2020 peak, not a confirmed multi-year slide through the present.
G02B, covering optical elements and systems, leads at 2.8% of the 257,894 records in scope, followed by H04N (pictorial communication) at 1.5% and A61B (diagnosis and surgery) at 1.0%. Because records often carry multiple IPC codes, these shares are measured against the full record total and will add up to more than 100% across all subclasses. No subclass in this dataset exceeds 3%, which points to activity spread across many downstream applications rather than concentrated in one.
US12284836B2, held by Visera Technologies and published 2025-04-22, describes an image sensor where a per-pixel optical component's lens is deliberately positioned so its focus point does not align with the center of the underlying photodiode. The claim covers this offset-focus arrangement across a photodiode array with a grid defining apertures for each optical component. Anyone designing image sensors with per-pixel micro-optics should check whether their lens-to-photodiode alignment falls within this offset claim structure before finalizing a design.
The dataset shows dense activity in G02B and H04N but comparatively little concentrated claim coverage in narrower adjacent areas such as waveguide-integrated laser coupling, multi-aperture illumination array control and reflective-display eyepiece optics. These do not register as leading IPC subclasses despite sitting next to the busiest categories. That gap is a starting point for scoping new claims, though it should be confirmed with a targeted search rather than treated as fully open territory.
Research Optical Components & Systems Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole optical components & systems patent landscape 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.