Photonic Integrated Circuit Lens and Optics Patent Landscape 2026
- 788 families, one dominant IPC. 786 of 788 records touch G02B, meaning almost every filer in this space is claiming against the same optical-elements subclass — differentiation happens in the adjacent H01L, H04B and H01S overlaps, not in G02B itself.
- Filings peaked in 2021 and have since flattened. From 35 filings in 2017 to a peak of 91 in 2021, then a decline through 2026 — a sign the core coupling claim space (grating couplers, spot-size converters) is largely staked out, even accounting for publication lag understating recent years.
- Recent filer momentum has stalled even at the top. Intel shows a flat single filing year-on-year and TSMC is down 80% YoY in the latest year — the most active historical filers are not the ones driving current activity.
Filing growth compares 2021 (91 records) with 2024 (69) — 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 788 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A dense, single-subclass field with a stalled filing curve
Photonic integrated circuit lens and coupling-optics patents cluster almost entirely inside one IPC subclass: 786 of 788 families touch G02B optical elements and systems. The remaining differentiation happens at the edges, where G02B claims overlap with semiconductor integration (H01L), transmission systems (H04B), optical modulation (G02F) and lasers (H01S). That overlap pattern is the real map of where technical novelty lives, since the G02B label itself covers everyone.
Filing activity rose from 35 records in 2017 to a peak of 91 in 2021, held roughly steady through a 2022 midpoint of 66, and has declined since — a pattern that points to a foundational claim space already largely staked out by the early-2020s, rather than a technology still in its growth phase. The most recent years understate true filing volume because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Filing trends and technology composition
Publication counts by year and by IPC subclass show where coupling-optics claim activity has concentrated, and where it is thinning out.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then flattened
Annual filings climbed from 35 in 2017 to a peak of 91 in 2021, held near that level through the 2022 midpoint of 66, and have declined since — consistent with a technology whose foundational coupling claims are largely staked out. The most recent years are undercounted because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
G02B dominates; H01L, H04B and H01S trail as adjacent claim zones
Of 788 families, 786 touch G02B optical elements — effectively the entire corpus. Semiconductor device integration (H01L, 99), transmission (H04B, 85), optical modulation (G02F, 82) and lasers (H01S, 77) are the next-largest adjacent subclasses, while multiplex communication (H04J, 37), H10W (37) and material analysis (G01N, 23) remain comparatively thin.
Shares are the percentage of the 788 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Photonic Integrated Circuit Lens and Optics with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe records anchoring this landscape
Vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) integration on a photonic integrated circuit (PIC)
An off-normal bottom-emitting VCSEL is integrated with a PIC so incident light couples efficiently to a waveguide via a grating coupler. Diffraction by the grating coupler is aligned with the waveguide input so most or all light enters it. The off-normal output is achieved with an output facet carrying decentered micro-lenses, micro-prisms, gratings, diffractive optical elements, and/or metasurfaces, which may also shape beam divergence.Filed by Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC — a 2024 marker of where combination claims (laser facet optics + grating coupler alignment) are heading next.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030099018A1 | Digital optical network architecture | 189 |
| 2 | US20030235370A1 | Fiber-to-waveguide coupler | 126 |
| 3 | US20060239612A1 | Flip-chip devices formed on photonic integrated circuit chips | 113 |
| 4 | US20110133063A1 | Optical waveguide and coupler apparatus and method of manufacturing the same | 110 |
| 5 | US7065272B2 | Fiber-to-waveguide coupler | 105 |
| 6 | US10333623B1 | Optical transceiver | 100 |
| 7 | US20160116688A1 | Photonic interface for electronic circuit | 84 |
| 8 | US20160161686A1 | Demountable optical connector for optoelectronic devices | 72 |
| 9 | US20160091368A1 | Heterogeneous spectroscopic transceiving photonic integrated circuit sensor | 71 |
| 10 | US20210286140A1 | Optical fiber-to-chip interconnection | 67 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older filings are structurally favoured, so read this as an influence map rather than a current-relevance ranking.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals for coupling-optics strategy
Three cross-cuts of the data — filing trend, IPC composition, and citation depth — point to a field with a dense, well-defended core and thinner but real openings at its edges.
Growth has plateaued, not accelerated
Filings rose steadily from 35 in 2017 to 91 in 2021, held near that level at the 2022 midpoint of 66, then declined. That trajectory is consistent with a sub-field whose broad, foundational claims were filed in the late 2010s, leaving later entrants to file narrower combination claims.
Almost the entire corpus sits inside one IPC subclass
G02B optical elements and systems appears in 786 of 788 records, making it the near-universal claim anchor. Meaningful differentiation shows up in the smaller overlaps with H01L semiconductor devices (99), H04B transmission (85) and H01S lasers (77), which is where integration-specific claims live.
Influence skews toward early fiber-to-waveguide art
The most-cited records in this corpus — led by a 2003-era digital optical network architecture patent at 189 citations — predate most of the filing volume growth. That is expected in any citation count within a bounded corpus: older filings accumulate citations simply by existing longer, so treat this as a map of influence, not of current relevance.
Joint filing is rare and concentrated in one relationship
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and one relationship — imec (Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec)) with Ghent University — accounts for the bulk of joint-filing depth at 26 shared records. Most other pairs show only a handful of shared filings, meaning cross-institutional claim-building is the exception, not the norm, in this space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to photonic integrated circuit lens and optics, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | Ghent University | 26 |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 5 |
| Nanoprecision Products, Inc. | Coretronic Quanta Florida, Inc. | 2 |
| Intel Corporation | RONG HAISHENG | 1 |
| Intel Corporation | NA YUN CHUNG | 1 |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | SCHEERLINCK STIJN | 1 |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | DE KATRIEN | 1 |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | BOGAERTS WIM | 1 |
The imec–Ghent University link is the strongest collaboration signal in the dataset by a wide margin; everything else is thin, single-digit co-filing.
Who holds the claim space, and where activity has cooled
Filing activity in this dataset is concentrated at the top among a small number of repeat filers, with a long tail of single-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum, however, has slowed even for the most active names — a gap between historical depth and current filing pace that matters more for freedom-to-operate planning than the raw ranking does.
Flat filing pace at the top of the ranking
Intel shows a single filing in the latest year with no year-on-year change — steady but not expanding activity from one of the field's most established names.
Sharp pullback from a major semiconductor filer
TSMC's filing pace in the latest year is down 80% year-on-year, the steepest decline among tracked assignees and a signal that its coupling-optics claim-building has slowed markedly.
The strongest joint-filing relationship in the dataset
imec and Ghent University's co-assignee link is by far the deepest collaboration in this corpus, dwarfing the next-strongest pair (imec with Samsung Electronics, 5 records) and pointing to a sustained joint research programme rather than one-off co-filing.
A filer that has gone quiet in the latest year
This assignee shows zero filings in the latest year against a prior baseline, a full drop-off that is worth checking against its earlier filing history before assuming exit.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Corporation | 1 | 0% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) | 1 | -80% |
| Google LLC | 0 | — |
| Skyworks AI, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) | 0 | — |
| Nanoprecision Products, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Luxtera, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this landscape from here
The filing and citation data point to a field with a dense core and specific, checkable openings. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing, or tracking a specific competitor.
Run a design-around check against the top-cited families
The highest-cited records — the fiber-to-waveguide coupler and flip-chip integration patents — anchor most later claims in this space. Before filing or launching, check new coupling designs against their specific claim elements rather than the broader G02B category.
Check overlap in EurekaModel a claim in the multiplex and testing adjacencies
H04J multiplex communication and G01N material analysis both show comparatively thin filing counts relative to the G02B core. A claim that ties coupling geometry to an in-line multiplexing or testing function sits in genuinely open space.
Draft a claim scaffold in EurekaTrack momentum, not just historical rank
Several of the most historically active assignees — including a major semiconductor manufacturer down 80% year-on-year — show slowing recent filing. Watching momentum alongside the ranking gives a more current read on who is actually shaping the field now.
Set up momentum tracking in EurekaCommon questions on PIC lens and coupling optics patents
Grating coupler claims typically cover a periodic structure etched into or on top of a waveguide that diffracts light vertically (or off-normal) into or out of the chip, which is why they pair closely with laser-integration claims such as VCSEL-to-PIC coupling. Spot-size converter claims instead cover a tapered or lensed waveguide structure that gradually reshapes an optical mode to match a fiber's larger spot size, coupling in-plane rather than vertically. Both branches trace back to older fiber-to-waveguide coupler families that remain among the most-cited records in this space, so a new filing in either branch needs to be checked against those base patents before assuming it is novel.
The filing trend in this dataset rises from 35 records in 2017 to a peak of 91 in 2021, then flattens through 2022 and declines afterward. That pattern is typical of a sub-field where the core claim space — vertical grating coupling, edge coupling, flip-chip integration — was staked out early and later filers had to work claim-by-claim around already-crowded prior art. It does not mean interest in the technology has faded; it means the easy, broad claims were filed years ago and what remains is narrower, combination-style innovation like the 2024 VCSEL-plus-metasurface filing from Meta Platforms.
The ranking in this dataset is concentrated at the top, with a small number of assignees — including Intel, TSMC, Google, and research consortia such as imec (Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec), paired with Ghent University in the strongest co-assignee link) — holding repeat filings, followed by a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum for even the most active names is muted: Intel shows a flat year-on-year single filing, and TSMC is down 80% year-on-year. That combination of top-heavy historical filing and thin recent activity suggests most of the foundational claim space is already occupied.
US20240019646A1, filed by Meta Platforms Technologies and published in January 2024, covers an off-normal, bottom-emitting VCSEL whose output facet is fitted with decentered micro-lenses, micro-prisms, gratings, diffractive optical elements, or metasurfaces, arranged so the emitted light diffracts through a grating coupler on the PIC and enters the waveguide efficiently. It is a specific combination claim: the facet-side beam-steering element plus grating-based waveguide entry, not a general claim over VCSEL-to-PIC coupling. Designs that couple via edge coupling or spot-size converters, or that steer the beam somewhere other than the VCSEL facet, sit outside its claim scope.
The clearest white space sits at the boundary between core coupling-optics claims (G02B) and adjacent functions that are comparatively under-filed: multiplex communication (H04J, 37 records), the H10W subclass (37 records), and material analysis or in-line testing (G01N, 23 records), all thin compared with the 786-record G02B core. A first claim in that gap would combine a specific coupling geometry with an in-line multiplexing or optical-testing function performed on the same optical path, rather than claiming light injection alone. Co-assignee filing in this space is also sparse — only 10 pairs total — which suggests few players have yet moved to jointly stake out these adjacencies.
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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.
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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.