PET Detector Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. the ranked leader holds 577 records yet the top 5 combined account for only 22.9% of all 6,243 records in scope — most of the field sits with a long tail of filers.
- Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak. 482 records that year fell to 263 by 2024, a 45% drop over that three-year span, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in under normal publication lag.
- Detector physics classes dominate over imaging-system classes. G01T nuclear radiation measurement appears in 49.1% of records and G01S positioning in 26.3%, ahead of A61B diagnosis/surgery at 14.5% — a sign much of the claim activity sits in the sensor, not the scanner.
Filing growth compares 2021 (482 records) with 2024 (263) — 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 6,243 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
PET detector patenting spans the physical stack that converts a gamma photon into a timed digital signal: scintillation crystals, silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), and the readout electronics that extract time-of-flight, light output and depth-of-interaction information. This search pulls 6,243 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine those detector-hardware terms with performance or cost constraints such as temperature drift, crystal pitch and detector cost.
Because the search terms bridge PET-specific language with adjacent fields — lidar and automotive ranging use near-identical SiPM and time-of-flight vocabulary — the dataset captures crossover filers as well as dedicated medical-imaging assignees. That overlap is visible in the IPC mix and in some of the most-cited records, and it matters for anyone assessing freedom to operate: a blocking claim on SiPM dark-count suppression or crystal-array coupling may originate outside conventional PET-vendor portfolios.
Filing trends and technology composition
Publication lag means the most recent one to two years always understate true filing activity; treat 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as a real decline.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then eased
Annual records climbed to 482 in 2021 from 334 in 2017, then declined to 263 by 2024 — a 45% fall over that three-year window. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are still low because publication has not caught up with filing.
Detector physics outweighs the imaging system
G01T (nuclear and X-radiation measurement) touches 49.1% of the 6,243 records, and G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) touches 26.3% — the latter reflecting time-of-flight and ranging overlap with lidar. A61B (diagnosis and surgery) sits at 14.5%, with materials science, semiconductor and optics classes each in the 5% range, marking narrower but active niches.
Shares are the percentage of the 6,243 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on PET Detector Technology with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about pet detector technology and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited records
Systems and methods for time of flight positron emission tomography (US20240418879A1)
The filing describes a TOF-PET detector block built from an array of silicon photomultiplier devices coupled one-to-one to an array of scintillation crystals, with each SiPM feeding an independent front-end readout circuit on an analog ASIC. The readout circuits are built to detect individual scintillating photons and actively suppress SiPM dark counts.Filed by GE Precision Healthcare, published 2024-12-19 — illustrative of current claim style: one-to-one crystal-to-SiPM coupling plus per-channel dark-count suppression at the ASIC level.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200284883A1 | Component for a lidar sensor system, lidar sensor system, lidar sensor device, method for a lidar sensor syst… | 1,012 |
| 2 | US20180113200A1 | Variable flux allocation within a lidar FOV to improve detection in a region | 380 |
| 3 | US5524133A | Material identification using x-rays | 356 |
| 4 | US4671102A | Method and apparatus for determining distribution of fluids | 346 |
| 5 | US20040195512A1 | Method and apparatus for anatomical and functional medical imaging | 328 |
| 6 | US20150378023A1 | System and method for scanning a surface and computer program implementing the method | 285 |
| 7 | US20040251419A1 | Device and system for enhanced SPECT, PET, and Compton scatter imaging in nuclear medicine | 282 |
| 8 | US6426991B1 | Back-illuminated photodiodes for computed tomography detectors | 226 |
| 9 | US5841140A | Gamma camera for pet and spect studies | 212 |
| 10 | US20100270462A1 | Slit and slot scan, SAR, and compton devices and systems for radiation imaging | 210 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once family counts, IPC shares and citation data are read together.
The top of the field is thinner than raw counts suggest
A single assignee leads with 577 records and the fifth-place holder sits at 138, yet the top five together account for only 22.9% of all 6,243 records in scope. The remaining three-quarters are spread across a long tail, including single-filing entrants — this is not a two- or three-player field.
Activity has eased from its 2021 high, unevenly across assignees
Filings fell from 482 in 2021 to 263 in 2024. Momentum data by assignee shows some large filers already at zero or near-zero in the latest tracked year, while others hold flat — a pullback concentrated among a subset of legacy filers rather than uniform across the field.
Lidar-adjacent claims share this search space
More than a quarter of records carry a G01S (radar, sonar, positioning) classification alongside detector-hardware terms, and several of the most-cited records in this dataset are lidar filings, not PET filings. Anyone assessing freedom to operate on SiPM or time-of-flight claims should check automotive-ranging portfolios, not only medical-imaging ones.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to pet detector technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is thin
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies as returned by the data endpoint — it is the full ranking, not a top-50 or top-100 cut, and most of the 6,243 records sit outside it.
One imaging incumbent holds a clear lead
The top-ranked assignee's 577 records put it well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 138, but that gap narrows fast further down the ranking, where the tenth position sits at 100.
Corporate structure shows up as co-assignee pairs
The strongest co-assignee pairing links a parent imaging company with its IP-holding affiliate at 117 shared records, with a similar pattern between a second manufacturer and its medical-systems and electronic-components units. These pairs reflect internal filing structure more than independent competition.
Several legacy filers have gone quiet in the latest tracked year
Momentum tracking shows multiple assignees — including large imaging and lidar-adjacent filers — at zero or sharply reduced filings in the most recent year, alongside at least one filer holding flat. Given publication lag, this understates true current activity but the direction of pullback among incumbents is consistent.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Waymo LLC | 6 | -77% |
| Innoviz Technologies Ltd. | 3 | 0% |
| Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd. | 1 | -83% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Seyond, Inc. (formerly Innovusion) | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or new filing strategy.
Check lidar-adjacent portfolios for FTO
With 26.3% of records also classed under G01S and several top-cited records being lidar filings, a freedom-to-operate check on SiPM or time-of-flight claims should extend beyond conventional PET-imaging vendors into automotive-ranging assignees.
Explore assignee overlap in EurekaWatch the under-claimed sub-areas before the next filing wave
Depth-of-interaction encoding, temperature-drift compensation and sub-millimetre crystal pitch show thinner claim density than the core crystal/SiPM cluster — worth tracking as filing activity from 2025 onward fills in.
Track white space in EurekaCommon questions on PET detector patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 577 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 138. However, the top five assignees combined account for only 22.9% of all 6,243 records in this dataset, so leadership at the top does not mean the field is closed — a long tail of filers, including single-patent entrants, holds the majority of activity. Anyone mapping competitors should look past the top ranking into that tail rather than assuming a handful of firms control the space.
Filings rose from 334 records in 2017 to a peak of 482 in 2021, then fell to 263 by 2024 — a 45% decline over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than a real drop in filing activity, since recent applications have not all published yet. The honest read is that the field cooled from its 2021 high through 2024; anything more recent is incomplete.
Silicon photomultipliers and time-of-flight measurement are shared building blocks between PET imaging and automotive lidar ranging, so patent language overlaps heavily. In this dataset, 26.3% of the 6,243 records also carry a G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) classification, and some of the most-cited records are lidar filings rather than medical-imaging ones. That overlap means a freedom-to-operate review for PET detector hardware should also cover lidar-sector assignees, not only imaging vendors.
It is a GE Precision Healthcare filing, published 2024-12-19, describing a time-of-flight PET detector block with a one-to-one array of silicon photomultipliers coupled to scintillation crystals, where each SiPM channel feeds an independent front-end readout circuit on an analog ASIC. The readout circuitry is built specifically to detect individual scintillating photons while suppressing SiPM dark counts. It is representative of current claim style in the space rather than a single dominant blocking patent, and its precise scope depends on the granted claim language, not the abstract alone.
Relative to the dense core cluster around scintillation crystals, SiPMs and time-of-flight readout, sub-areas such as depth-of-interaction crystal encoding, temperature-drift compensation circuits, sub-millimetre crystal pitch arrays and cost-reduced scintillator materials show thinner claim density in this dataset. That does not guarantee those branches are unpatented, but it does mean fewer assignees have staked a broad claim there, leaving more room to define a first-mover position with a carefully drafted independent claim.
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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.