Optical Transceiver Quantum Photonics Patent Landscape 2026
- 42 families, plateaued since 2020. Filings peaked at 7 in 2020 and the 2022 midpoint matches that peak — every leading assignee shows zero filings in the latest tracked year.
- H04L and H04B hold 36 and 26 records. Every other IPC subclass in this corpus — G02F, H01L, G06N among them — sits at 2 or 3 records, marking clear under-claimed territory.
- China files 23, the US 14. Receiving-office activity concentrates in continuous-variable QKD systems from China and VCSEL-pair transceiver architectures from the US.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (2) — 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 42 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A narrow field built on two architectures
Optical transceiver quantum photonics sits at the intersection of two normally separate patent literatures: classical optical-module engineering and quantum key distribution. The corpus behind this page — 42 patent families — is small enough that a handful of records define the field’s shape. Two architectures dominate: continuous-variable QKD schemes that reuse a transceiver’s local-oscillator path, concentrated among Chinese filers, and dual-laser designs that dedicate a second VCSEL to a quantum channel alongside the data channel, the pattern behind the most recent representative filing tracked here.
Filing activity rose through the late 2010s, peaked in 2020, and has not clearly resumed growth since — the 2022 midpoint matches the 2020 peak rather than exceeding it, and every leading assignee shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Some of that apparent slowdown is the normal 18-month lag between filing and publication, but the plateau predates the most recent years and looks structural rather than purely a reporting artefact.
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
Forty-two families anchor this landscape, filed between 2015 and the current data cut-off. The trend and IPC mix below show where claim activity has concentrated — and where it has already cooled.
Filings peaked in 2020, then flattened
Filings rose to 6 in 2017 and peaked at 7 in 2020. The 2022 midpoint sits at the same level as the peak, and the count runs down to 0 by 2026 — read the final one to two years as reporting lag, not a real drop-off, but treat the post-2020 trajectory as flat at best.
H04L and H04B carry almost all of the volume
H04L (digital information transmission) and H04B (transmission, general) account for 36 and 26 of the tracked records respectively, dwarfing every other subclass. G02B, H04J, G02F, G06N, G06Q and H01L each sit at 2–3 records, marking them as thin rather than empty.
Shares are the percentage of the 42 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Transceiver Quantum Photonics with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about optical transceiver quantum photonics and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Hybrid quantum key distribution link for an optical transceiver
Embodiments are disclosed for a quantum key distribution enabled intra-datacenter network. An example system includes a first vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), a second VCSEL and a network interface controller. The first VCSEL is configured to emit a first optical signal associated with data. The second VCSEL is configured to emit a second optical signal associated with quantum key distribution (QKD). Furthermore, the network interface controller is configured to manage transmission of the first optical signal associated with the first VCSEL and the second optical signal associated with the second VCSEL via an optical communication channel coupled to a network interface module.US20240235826A1 — Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. — published 2024-07-11
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN111786730A | 导频辅助的本地本振连续变量量子密钥分发系统及方法 | 26 |
| 2 | US11509399B2 | Optical module, a system, a sending unit, a receiving unit, and a quantum communication system | 18 |
| 3 | US10924269B1 | Compact optical module integrated for communicating cryptocurrency transaction | 17 |
| 4 | CN107276753A | 一种信道复用的量子密钥分发系统及方法 | 17 |
| 5 | US11238428B1 | System and method for secure transactions to transmit cryptocurrency | 15 |
| 6 | CN107579820A | 用于多路量子密钥分发系统的同步装置和同步方法 | 13 |
| 7 | US20220166522A1 | Optical module, a system, a sending unit, a receiving unit, and a quantum communication system | 10 |
| 8 | CN203251311U | 用于诱骗态量子密钥分配系统的量子态调制装置 | 10 |
| 9 | CN111726229A | 一种自适应多波段水下无线量子密钥分发系统及方法 | 7 |
| 10 | CN203466829U | 一种量子密钥分发终端和系统 | 7 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older records; treat them as an influence signal, not a ranking of current commercial importance.
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.
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 filing pattern says
The numbers point to a narrow, already-mapped field rather than an emerging one. Three signals matter most for anyone deciding whether to file here.
Growth stalled after 2020
Filings climbed from 6 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2020, and the 2022 midpoint sits level with that peak rather than above it. Recent-year momentum across every leading assignee reads zero. Some of that flatness is publication lag, but the multi-year plateau before the most recent years is a real signal.
Claim space is architectural, not material
The two dominant IPC subclasses both describe transmission-layer architecture rather than the physical photonics itself. G02F (modulation), H01L (device integration) and G06N (AI-driven control) each carry only 2–3 records, leaving the device- and firmware-level implementation comparatively open.
China and the US lead, but on different routes
China-origin filings cluster around continuous-variable QKD system claims; the US cluster leans toward VCSEL-pair transceiver architectures and, notably, cryptocurrency-transaction framing. EPO and PCT filings are a small fraction of the total, suggesting limited international-phase pursuit so far.
Filing is mostly solo, not joint
Only two co-assignee pairs appear across the 42 families, both involving Chinese quantum-communication network entities. That is a low collaboration signal for a field this specialised, and it means most freedom-to-operate analysis can treat assignees as independent actors.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical transceiver quantum photonics, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Guangdong Guoke Quantum Communication Network Co., Ltd. | Guoke Quantum Communication Network Co., Ltd. | 2 |
| QuantumCTek Co., Ltd. | Shandong Institute of Quantum Science and Technology Co., Ltd. | 1 |
Two co-assignee pairs across 42 families, both centred on Chinese quantum-communication network operators — collaboration here is the exception, not the norm.
Who holds the claim space
No assignee in the recent-year momentum table shows active filing in the latest tracked year, which makes this a field of past claim-staking rather than live competitive races. Positioning against these holders means understanding what they already cover, not how fast they are moving now.
Continuous-variable QKD system holders
Assignees including QuantumCTek Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Jiuzhou Quantum Information Technology Co., Ltd. anchor the continuous-variable, local-oscillator QKD cluster that produced the corpus's most-cited record. All show zero filings in the latest tracked year.
Dual-VCSEL transceiver architecture
Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. holds the representative dual-VCSEL, shared-controller architecture. It also reports zero filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the corpus-wide plateau.
Limited joint filing
Co-assignee activity is confined to two pairs, both centred on Chinese quantum-communication network operators — Guangdong Guoke Quantum Communication Network Co., Ltd. with Guoke Quantum Communication Network Co., Ltd., and QuantumCTek Co., Ltd. with Shandong Institute of Quantum Science and Technology Co., Ltd.. Joint filing is not the norm here.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Anhui Asky Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| ID Quantique SA | 0 | — |
| QuantumCTek Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang Jiuzhou Quantum Information Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Cisco Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Guangdong Guoke Quantum Communication Network Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
This landscape identifies the two dominant architectures and the thin IPC pockets around them. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going deeper on specific claims and specific holders.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the two cited clusters
Compare a candidate design's claim elements directly against the continuous-variable QKD and dual-VCSEL architecture families rather than relying on the aggregate trend.
Start a claim comparison in EurekaDraft around the under-claimed IPC pockets
G02F, H01L and G06N each carry only 2–3 records — draft a first claim there and stress-test it against the full family text, not just the abstract.
Explore white space in EurekaFrequently asked questions
This dataset tracks 42 patent families published between 2015 and the mid-2026 data cut-off, drawn from filings that combine optical transceiver or co-packaged optics terminology with quantum key distribution, single-photon source, entangled photon or quantum transceiver claim language. That is a small, specialist corpus rather than a mass-filed field. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any count will look thinner than they actually are once late filings publish.
No — filings rose through the late 2010s, peaked at 7 in 2020, and the 2022 midpoint sits at the same level as that peak rather than above it. Recent-year momentum tables show every leading assignee at zero filings in the latest tracked year. Combined with the lag between filing and publication, the honest read is a field that plateaued around 2020 rather than one still accelerating.
US20240235826A1, filed by Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. and published 2024-07-11, claims a network interface controller that manages two separate VCSELs — one for data, one for quantum key distribution — over a shared optical communication channel. Anyone building an intra-datacenter transceiver with that controller-mediated, dual-VCSEL architecture sits close to its claim scope. Designs that use a physically separate quantum-signal path or a non-VCSEL light source fall outside its plain claim language.
The IPC composition shows G02F (optical modulation and control) and H01L (semiconductor device integration) at just 2 records each, against 36 for H04L and 26 for H04B. That imbalance points to monolithic integration of single-photon or entangled-photon sources directly into a transceiver's modulator or laser die as an under-claimed direction. G06N, also at 2 records, suggests learned-model-driven key-rate optimisation inside transceiver firmware is similarly open.
China accounts for 23 of the tracked receiving-office filings, the United States for 14, with the EPO and WIPO/PCT route contributing a handful more. The most-cited records split between Chinese continuous-variable QKD system patents and US filings covering optical-module-plus-quantum-communication architectures. Co-assignee activity is minimal — only two pairs appear in the dataset — indicating that most work here is filed by single entities rather than joint ventures.
Research Optical Transceiver Quantum Photonics in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole optical transceiver quantum photonics 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.