Optical Transceiver Lens Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has already peaked. Activity crested at 15 families in 2022 and has not returned to that level since — this is a claim space being consolidated, not one still expanding.
- G02B dominates almost completely. 191 of 192 records sit in optical elements & systems, with adjacent subclasses like H04N and H01L appearing only as secondary classifications on a minority of filings.
- Co-filing is rare and concentrated. Only 7 co-assignee pairs exist across the entire dataset, and the strongest links trace back to the same small cluster of individual inventors.
Filing growth compares 2021 (12 records) with 2024 (12) — 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 192 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families where coupling lens, microlens array, collimating optics or free-space optics terminology appears directly in the title or claims of filings classified against optical elements (G02B6/32), general optics (G02B3/00) and optical systems (G02B27), and where the underlying application concerns an optical transceiver, optical module, or co-packaged optics architecture. The search deliberately narrows on component-level optical coupling rather than the broader transceiver electronics or packaging claims that surround it.
Filing activity runs from 2017 through the current partial year, with the United States as the dominant receiving office by a wide margin over Europe, Japan, China, Canada and WIPO combined. Publication for the most recent filing year is understated, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
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Filing trend and technology composition
192 patent families make up this landscape, filed against a search string that isolates coupling-optics claims within transceiver and co-packaged optics contexts. The trend and the IPC spread both point to a narrow, already-mapped claim space rather than a broad or still-expanding one.
A single peak, then plateau
Filings rose from 6 in 2017 to a peak of 15 in 2022, then eased off. With the 2022 midpoint value equal to the peak, the growth curve reads flat-to-declining rather than accelerating — a sign that the core coupling-lens architectures for transceiver optics were largely staked out by the early 2020s.
One subclass carries almost the entire dataset
G02B (optical elements & systems) appears in 191 of 192 records — effectively universal coverage. The next-largest subclasses, H04N, G06F and H01L, sit in the low teens, meaning most filings treat imaging, compute and semiconductor integration as secondary classifications rather than the primary claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 192 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Transceiver Lens and Optics with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about optical transceiver lens and optics and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and citation anchors
US20020131700A1 — Optical module and method for assembling the same
Filed by Nippon Sheet Glass and published in 2002, this record describes a planar microlens array bonded to a transparent substrate for conjugate-ratio adjustment, paired with a guide substrate for optical fiber alignment. The construction is built specifically to let passive alignment replace active alignment during assembly, shortening the alignment step while keeping optical design flexibility.Note: this record predates most of the dataset's filing activity by over a decade and functions as prior art for a large share of later microlens-array coupling claims.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6040934A | Receptacle-type optical transmission/reception apparatus | 96 |
| 2 | US20180067319A1 | Optical configurations for head-worn see-through displays | 71 |
| 3 | US6901185B2 | Optical module capable of improving coupling efficiency and suppressing fluctuation of coupling loss and its … | 64 |
| 4 | US4600271A | Head-up display | 62 |
| 5 | US20200278557A1 | Head-Mounted Augmented Reality Device Employing An Optical Bench | 57 |
| 6 | US20190265476A1 | See-through near eye optical module | 56 |
| 7 | US20160116695A1 | Optical module, optical module mounting method, optical module-mounted circuit substrate, optical module eval… | 44 |
| 8 | US20160266340A1 | Latching and EMI shielding mechanism for an optical module | 44 |
| 9 | CN105759371A | 一种用于双链路传输的并行收发光模块和制作方法 | 35 |
| 10 | JP2002214543A | Microelectrical mechanical system (Mems) optical modulator, mems optical module, mems light display system, a… | 30 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older filings on head-worn display optics and receptacle-style transceiver coupling lead the table — that reflects influence within the searched corpus, not present-day filing priority.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data implies for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the trend, classification spread and citation table are read together: the field is post-peak, the classification footprint is unusually narrow, and influence is anchored in older display and receptacle-coupling art rather than recent transceiver-specific filings.
The peak has passed
Filing volume crested in 2022 and has since fallen back toward single digits, with 2026 figures still partial. New entrants filing now are working against a claim space that was already dense three to four years ago.
Almost no cross-domain spread
Unlike adjacent photonics fields where filings split across imaging, display and semiconductor packaging subclasses, this dataset stays almost entirely within G02B. Cross-classification into H04N, G06F, H01L or G09G is present but secondary in every case.
Influence sits with older receptacle and head-worn display art
The most-cited records include a 1996-era receptacle-type transmission apparatus and several head-worn/head-up display optics filings, alongside a 2000s coupling-efficiency patent. These are foundational references, not indicators of where current filing activity is concentrated.
Co-filing is the exception
Only seven co-assignee pairs exist in 192 families, and the strongest of them link the same three individual inventor names rather than distinct corporate assignees. Most filings in this landscape are single-assignee efforts.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical transceiver lens and optics, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds this ground, and where the gaps sit
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is uniformly flat or negative — no assignee in the momentum table shows growth into the most recent filing year, consistent with a post-peak field where incumbents are maintaining existing portfolios rather than expanding them.
The only assignee still filing
New Vision Reality, Inc. is the sole tracked assignee with any activity in the latest year, and even that is flat year-on-year rather than growing. Every other tracked assignee, including Nippon Sheet Glass Co., Ltd. and Sony Group Corporation, shows zero filings in the latest year.
A sharp pullback from head-worn display optics
MENTOR ACQUISITION ONE LLC's year-on-year figure shows a full drop to zero in the latest year, following prior activity tied to the head-worn and augmented-reality display optics referenced in the citation table.
The prior-art baseline for microlens coupling
The representative record in this landscape, filed by Nippon Sheet Glass in 2002, describes a planar microlens array and guide substrate approach that predates most later filings by over a decade and sits as a reference point for passive-alignment coupling designs.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| New Vision Reality, Inc. | 1 | 0% |
| Nippon Sheet Glass Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| MENTOR ACQUISITION ONE LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Lumus Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Insolight SA | 0 | — |
| Sony Group Corporation | 0 | — |
| Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing trend and classification spread narrow the question to specifics: which claims are actually load-bearing, and which sub-areas remain open enough to file into without immediately colliding with the receptacle and microlens-array prior art anchoring this dataset.
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Run the coupling-lens or microlens-array claim language you're drafting against US6040934A, US6901185B2 and the other most-cited records before committing engineering time.
Explore with Eureka →Track the single active filer's follow-on filings
New Vision Reality, Inc. is the only assignee showing any latest-year activity — watching its continuation and divisional filings is the cheapest way to see where the field moves next.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
This landscape covers 192 patent families filed between 2015 and the current partial year, identified through a search that combines optical transceiver and co-packaged optics terminology with coupling lens, microlens array and free-space optics language in the title and claims. The figure is a family count rather than a raw document count, which is the fairer unit because it neutralises duplicate continuation and multi-jurisdiction filings. Coverage runs across six receiving offices, with the United States accounting for the largest share by a wide margin.
No. Filing volume peaked at 15 families in 2022 and has since declined, with the most recent year showing only a single filing so far. Because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, the last one to two years are understated in any raw count, but the trend from the 2022 peak downward is clear enough that this reads as a plateaued or contracting filing area rather than a growing one. Anyone entering now is filing into a space that was already densely claimed several years ago.
The most-cited records in this dataset include a receptacle-type optical transmission apparatus, a coupling-efficiency-focused optical module patent, and several head-worn and head-up display optics filings, with citation counts ranging from the high 50s to 96. These citation counts reflect accumulated influence over time within the searched corpus and favour older filings by construction, so they indicate which patents other filers have had to reference or design around, not which assignees are most active today. Recent-year momentum data shows a different picture, with only one tracked assignee showing any activity in the latest year.
Microlens array claims typically cover an arrayed set of small lenses formed on a shared substrate, often paired with a guide substrate for fiber or chip alignment, as seen in the representative Nippon Sheet Glass record from 2002. Free-space optics claims instead cover the coupling of light between components without a waveguide or fiber intermediary, relying on collimation and alignment tolerances across an open optical path. Both terms appear in the search criteria for this landscape because co-packaged optics designs frequently combine the two approaches within a single module.
The classification data shows 191 of 192 records sitting in the G02B optical elements and systems subclass, with almost no spread into adjacent areas like thermal management of co-packaged optics or wafer-level microlens replication processes. Sub-areas such as free-space alignment tolerancing, hybrid fiber-to-chip collimation and passive-alignment guide substrate variants show thinner direct coverage relative to the dense core microlens-array and receptacle-coupling claims. These are reasonable areas to search further before drafting a new application, since they sit adjacent to occupied claim territory rather than inside it.
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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.