Optical Frequency Comb Modulator Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing already peaked. Activity crested at 8 families in 2019 and has since flattened toward the 2022 midpoint of 4 — this is not a technology still accelerating into commercial scale.
- One IPC subclass dominates. 26 of 29 records sit in G02F (optical control & modulation), meaning nearly the entire corpus is contesting a single claim space rather than spreading across adjacent domains.
- The US is the filing venue of record. 20 of 29 records were filed at the USPTO versus 4 PCT, 3 EPO, and single filings in China and Austria — enforcement leverage concentrates in one jurisdiction.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (5) — 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.
What this landscape covers
Optical frequency comb modulators generate discrete, evenly spaced spectral lines from a continuous-wave laser using electro-optic or cascaded modulation, rather than mode-locked lasers alone. This landscape tracks patent families filed against electro-optic comb, modulator-based comb generation, lithium niobate comb, and cascaded modulation comb language, cross-referenced against the core optical-modulation and laser IPC classes. The corpus is small and dense: 29 published families across an eleven-year window, concentrated almost entirely in one IPC subclass.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent filing years in this dataset understate real activity. Even accounting for that lag, the trend line from the 2019 peak to the 2022 midpoint points to a claim space that is filling in rather than expanding.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 29-family corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings rose to a 2019 peak, then flattened
From zero recorded filings in 2017, activity built to a peak of 8 families in 2019. The 2022 midpoint sits at 4 — half the peak — indicating filing has plateaued rather than continued to climb toward the 2026 cut-off.
G02F carries almost the entire corpus
26 of 29 records classify under G02F (optical control & modulation), with H01S (lasers) a distant second at 8. G04F, H04B, G01S and G01R appear only incidentally, each with three records or fewer, showing this is a tightly bounded modulation problem rather than a broad cross-disciplinary one.
Shares are the percentage of the 29 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Frequency Comb Optical Modulator with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Optical frequency comb assembly and method (US20200287344A1)
The filing describes operating a comb source to generate laser light, seeding a branch light path from a common light path, and determining a phase difference of a frequency mode between light coupled out upstream of an optical element and light coupled out at a measurement point further along the branch — a phase-referencing architecture for comb-based measurement.Assignee: Menlo Systems GmbH · Filed/published: 2020-09-10
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2020076402A1 | Compact microresonator frequency comb | 50 |
| 2 | US20210096444A1 | Optical frequency comb generation in integrated lithium niobate devices | 29 |
| 3 | US20210294180A1 | Compact microresonator frequency comb | 26 |
| 4 | US20210072616A1 | Integrated electro-optic frequency comb generator | 17 |
| 5 | WO2019213137A1 | Optical frequency comb generation in integrated lithium niobate devices | 14 |
| 6 | US20160077403A1 | Opto-electric frequency comb generator | 14 |
| 7 | US11537026B2 | Optical frequency comb generation in integrated lithium niobate devices | 11 |
| 8 | US11307484B2 | Integrated electro-optic frequency comb generator | 8 |
| 9 | US11409185B2 | Compact microresonator frequency comb | 3 |
| 10 | US11456571B2 | Optical frequency comb assembly and method | 3 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current technical importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about this field
Three figures from this dataset matter more than the raw count of 29 families: where filing activity peaked, how narrow the technical claim space is, and where enforcement risk actually sits.
Activity has already crested
The peak of 8 families in 2019 has not been matched since; the 2022 midpoint of 4 shows a field that built quickly and then settled rather than one still climbing.
Nearly the whole corpus is one IPC subclass
G02F (optical control & modulation) accounts for 26 of 29 records. H01S (lasers) appears in 8, but no other subclass reaches more than 3 — this is a narrowly bounded claim space, not a diffuse one.
Enforcement risk concentrates in the US
Twenty of 29 records were filed at the USPTO against 4 PCT applications, 3 at the EPO, and single filings in China and Austria. Freedom-to-operate work should start with US prosecution history.
Collaboration is limited and academic
Only 4 co-assignee pairs exist in the corpus, the strongest being a university pairing filing jointly 4 times; the rest are individual-inventor pairs filing together twice each.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical frequency comb optical modulator, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | 4 |
| HOLZWARTH RONALD | HANSEL WOLFGANG | 2 |
| HOLZWARTH RONALD | GIUNTA MICHELE | 2 |
| HANSEL WOLFGANG | GIUNTA MICHELE | 2 |
The strongest joint-filing relationship in this corpus is between two university research bodies, filing together 4 times; individual-inventor pairs account for the remaining co-assignee activity at 2 filings each.
Who is filing, and where momentum stands
The named assignees in this corpus include university technology-transfer offices, a specialist comb-instrumentation vendor, and an applied-photonics research institute. None show filings in the latest recorded year, consistent with the plateau visible in the overall trend.
Menlo Systems
A specialist frequency-comb instrumentation company whose representative filing in this corpus covers phase-referencing architecture for comb assemblies, reflecting a metrology-first approach to comb generation.
Harvard
Appears as part of the corpus's strongest co-assignee pairing, filing jointly with Stanford four times — the only academic collaboration in this dataset with more than two shared filings.
Stanford
Co-files with Harvard as its primary partner in this corpus; the pairing points to a joint university research program rather than independent parallel filing.
Caltech
Named individually in the assignee ranking with no co-assignee pairing recorded, suggesting solo institutional filing rather than joint sponsorship.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Chaoguang Inc. | 0 | — |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | 0 | — |
| The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | 0 | — |
| Menlo Systems GmbH | 0 | — |
| California Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| IMRA America, Inc. | 0 | — |
| WAVERYDE INSTRUMENTS INC | 0 | -100% |
| HOLZWARTH RONALD | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The raw counts here point to specific follow-up work rather than a finished conclusion.
Check prosecution status on the top-cited families
Citation rank favours older filings; confirm which of the most-cited records are still in force before treating them as active blocking art.
Run a freedom-to-operate check →Map the white-space chips against your own claims
The under-claimed branches listed here are starting points, not a clearance opinion — test them against a full claims search in your specific architecture.
Explore white space in Eureka →Watch for the 18-month publication lag
Filings from the last 18 months are systematically under-represented in this dataset; re-run the trend query periodically rather than treating 2026 as final.
Set up a monitoring alert →Common questions about this landscape
The corpus is dominated by university research institutions and specialist metrology vendors rather than large industrial players. Harvard and Stanford appear together as the strongest co-filing pair, and Menlo Systems holds a representative filing covering phase-referencing architecture for comb assemblies. No single assignee shows filing activity in the most recent recorded year, which is consistent with the sector's overall plateau since its 2019 peak.
No — filing peaked at 8 families in 2019 and had fallen to a midpoint of 4 by 2022, indicating a flattening rather than a continued climb. Some of the apparent slowdown in the most recent years is an artifact of the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so the very latest years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. Even allowing for that lag, the multi-year trend from 2019 onward does not show renewed acceleration.
The overwhelming majority of records, 26 of 29, classify under G02F, which covers optical control and modulation devices. H01S (lasers and stimulated emission) appears in 8 records, reflecting the overlap between comb generation and laser source design. Smaller counts appear in G04F, H04B, G01S and G01R, showing incidental overlap with timing, communications, radar and measurement applications rather than substantial claim activity there.
The United States, by a wide margin: 20 of the 29 records in this corpus were filed at the USPTO. PCT applications account for 4 filings, the EPO for 3, and China and Austria for one each. Any clearance work on electro-optic or cascaded-modulation comb generation should start with US prosecution histories before extending to PCT and EPO family members.
The filing, assigned to Menlo Systems, describes operating a comb source to generate laser light, seeding a branch light path from a common light path, and determining the phase difference of a frequency mode between light coupled out at a reference point and light coupled out further along the branch. In practical terms it covers a phase-referencing measurement architecture built around a comb assembly rather than the comb generation method itself. Anyone building comb-based metrology with a similar branch-and-reference phase comparison should review this filing's claim scope directly rather than relying on the abstract alone.
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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.