PIC Simulation Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 22 families total. a small, tightly-scoped corpus rather than a crowded field — filing activity peaked in 2020 and has not returned to that level since.
- G02B dominates the composition. 17 of the records sit in optical elements & systems, with lasers (H01S) a distant second at 6 — modeling claims cluster around device geometry, not algorithms.
- No single assignee shows recent-year momentum. every tracked assignee, including the most active filers, recorded zero filings in the latest year — a sign the field's IP is dormant rather than actively contested right now.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 22 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks patent families at the intersection of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design and simulation or modeling methods — FDTD solvers, mode solvers, device-level modeling and photonic circuit simulation tools — filed against optical and computational IPC classes between 2015 and mid-2026. The scope is deliberately narrow: it excludes general silicon photonics fabrication patents that do not touch simulation, and it excludes pure software patents that do not reference a photonic device context.
Twenty-two families is a small corpus by patent-landscape standards, which makes ranking noise a real risk: a single well-cited filing can look disproportionately important simply because the base rate is low. Read the trend and composition data as directional, not as a market-share statement.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 22 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2020, dropped to 0 at the 2022 midpoint, and show 0 in the most recent year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be — but the flat-to-declining shape predates that lag effect.
IPC subclass composition
G02B (optical elements & systems) accounts for 17 of the 22 records, making it the default home for simulation and modeling claims in this space. H01S (lasers), G06F (digital data processing), B82Y, F21V, G02F and H01L each appear in low single digits, suggesting simulation-specific claims are still being drafted primarily as optics claims rather than as computational-method claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 22 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 Simulation and Modeling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about photonic integrated circuit simulation and modeling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Method and apparatus for photonic circuit simulation
Describes a non-transitory medium storing instructions that automatically identify computational regions across a photonic integrated circuit, without requiring user input, and perform electromagnetic simulation across adjoining regions of the device.Filed by Photon Design Ltd, published 2024-07-02 as US12026445B1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050220396A1 | Multi-channel drop filter using photonic crystal | 20 |
| 2 | US20160341896A1 | Methods and systems relating to optical waveguide tapers | 19 |
| 3 | US20130188904A1 | Hybrid laser light sources for photonic integrated circuits | 19 |
| 4 | US20200393615A1 | Pixel array implemented on photonic integrated circuit (PIC) | 14 |
| 5 | US20200225401A1 | Integrated Freeform Optical Couplers | 13 |
| 6 | US9829629B2 | Methods and systems relating to optical waveguide tapers | 8 |
| 7 | WO2020180391A1 | Scalable integration of hybrid optoelectronic and quantum optical systems into photonic circuits | 4 |
| 8 | US11480728B2 | Pixel array implemented on photonic integrated circuit (PIC) | 3 |
| 9 | US20180143375A1 | Multi-Mode Forked Grating Coupler | 3 |
| 10 | US11378733B2 | Integrated freeform optical couplers | 2 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the composition and citation data that matter more than the raw counts.
Claims are drafted as optics, not algorithms
The overwhelming majority of records sit in G02B (optical elements & systems), with only 3 in G06F (digital data processing). Simulation and modeling inventions in this field are being claimed through the physical device they model, not through the computational method itself — a gap for anyone drafting a pure algorithmic claim.
Influence skews old
The most-cited record dates to 2005; three of the five most-cited filings predate 2017. Citation counts favour older documents simply because they've had longer to accumulate references — treat the citation table as a map of historical influence, not of what's commercially active today.
No assignee is currently active
Every assignee with recent activity, including Photon Design Ltd and academic filers, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Combined with the flat 2022 midpoint, this points to a field where prior claims are settled rather than a live filing race.
Filing is US-centred with limited multi-jurisdiction spread
United States receives 14 of the 22 records, versus 4 via PCT/WIPO and 3 via the EPO. A single filing from India is the only exposure outside the US/Europe/PCT axis — freedom-to-operate work outside the US should not assume equivalent coverage.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to photonic integrated circuit simulation and modeling, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where they don't
With 22 families spread across a mix of corporate, academic and individual filers, no single assignee controls the field — but a few co-filing clusters show where research groups have concentrated their claims.
A long tail, not a concentrated market
The assignee ranking spans corporate filers (Photon Design Ltd, Apple Inc./Apple), academic institutions (Yale University/Yale University) and named individual inventors (ZUO HAIJIE, YU SHAOLIANG). No single filer dominates the 22-family corpus.
Co-filing clusters around individual inventors
The strongest co-assignee links — ZUO HAIJIE with YU SHAOLIANG, HU JUEJUN and GU TIAN, each appearing twice — suggest a small research group filing jointly rather than a corporate lab structure.
Everyone has gone quiet at once
Photon Design Ltd, Apple, Yale University and the named individual filers all show zero filings in the most recent tracked year. That uniform pause makes it hard to call a current leader — recent silence, not recent dominance, is the defining pattern.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| PHOTON DESIGN LTD | 0 | — |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | — |
| Yale University | 0 | — |
| ZUO HAIJIE | 0 | — |
| YU SHAOLIANG | 0 | — |
| QUITORIANO NATHANIEL | 0 | — |
| PARK YOUNG SOO | 0 | — |
| NADOVICH CHRISTOPHER T | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow, currently dormant field with claim gaps around computational method rather than device structure.
Map the white space claims
Run a deeper query against G06F-classified simulation methods specifically — inverse design, ML-assisted mode solving and multi-physics co-simulation — to confirm how thin coverage actually is before drafting.
Explore in Eureka →Watch for a filing restart
With every tracked assignee at zero in the latest year, a single new filer entering could reset the competitive picture. Set an alert on the core IPC classes rather than on named assignees.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Check freedom-to-operate against the top-cited records
The five most-cited filings, several predating 2017, still anchor the citation graph. Any new simulation-method filing should be checked against them even though they are old.
Run a clearance search in Eureka →Common questions about PIC simulation patents
This landscape identifies 22 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine photonic integrated circuit or silicon photonics terminology with simulation-specific language such as FDTD, mode solving or device modeling. That is a small corpus compared to broader silicon photonics fabrication patents, reflecting that simulation-specific claiming is still a niche within the wider field. Filing peaked in 2020 at 4 families and has not returned to that level since.
The ranking includes corporate filers such as Photon Design Ltd and Apple, academic institutions including Yale University, and several named individual inventors who co-file together. No single assignee holds a dominant share of the 22 tracked families, and every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the most recent year. This makes the field better described as fragmented than as led by one company.
US12026445B1, assigned to Photon Design Ltd and published in mid-2024, claims a method that automatically identifies computational regions across a photonic integrated circuit without requiring user input, then runs electromagnetic simulation across adjoining regions. The automatic-partitioning step is the functional core of the claim — a competing tool that requires a user to manually define simulation regions would sit outside it. Anyone building an automated PIC simulation pipeline should check this filing directly against their partitioning logic.
Based on this dataset, it is fragmented. The 22 families spread across corporate, academic and individual filers with no dominant assignee, and the IPC composition shows 17 of 22 records in general optical-elements classifications rather than a tight computational-method cluster. Combined with a flat-to-declining filing trend and zero recent-year activity across every tracked filer, the picture is of a quiet field rather than a consolidated one.
The composition data shows claims concentrated in device-level optics (G02B) with comparatively little coverage in pure computational method classes like G06F. That suggests under-claimed territory in inverse-design algorithms, machine-learning-assisted mode solving, thermal-aware multi-physics co-simulation and foundry-PDK-linked simulation models. A first filer with a well-drafted computational-method claim in one of these branches would face relatively little prior art based on this corpus.
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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.