Precision Ag Route & Application Optimization Patent Landscape
The precision agriculture route and application optimization patent corpus is geographically concentrated in India and dominated by academic institutions rather than commercial agritech firms, with virtually all activity originating after 2022. The field is expanding rapidly from a near-zero base, driven by AI-soil-management combinations, though the shallow citation depth and absence of cross-border filings signal an early-stage, pre-commercialization landscape.
India-based universities co-lead a nascent, fragmented field
Manipal University Jaipur and Anurag University share the top rank, each with 4 patent families, followed closely by a cluster of individual inventors and engineering colleges at 3 families apiece. No single applicant holds a commanding position.
The top five filers account for 15 percent of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, indicating low concentration — no applicant has yet established a defensible portfolio lead. The field is populated by a long tail of universities, colleges, and individual inventors rather than by agricultural-technology corporations.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manipal University Jaipur | 4 | |
| 2 | Anurag University | 4 | |
| 3 | Anil D | 3 | |
| 4 | Suresha S | 3 | |
| 5 | CVR College of Engineering | 3 | |
| 6 | Lovely Professional University | 2 | |
| 7 | Vishwakarma Institute of Technology | 2 | |
| 8 | Chandigarh University | 2 | |
| 9 | Vaibhav Laxman Dhasal | 2 | |
| 10 | K S Rangasamy College of Technology | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | G. Ashwin Prabhu | 2 | |
| 12 | Dandamudi Srilatha | 1 | |
| 13 | BVRIT Hyderabad College of Engineering for Women | 1 | |
| 14 | SAVEETHA INST OF MEDICAL & TECH SCI | 1 | |
| 15 | Reddy Viswanathan Ramasamy | 1 | |
| 16 | Pradeep Chauhan | 1 | |
| 17 | Utkarsh Arun Avalekar | 1 | |
| 18 | Yogesh Kalyani | 1 | |
| 19 | Kamble Aayushee Ghanshyam | 1 | |
| 20 | Vidya Kamma | 1 |
The absence of major agritech or agri-input multinationals from the ranking suggests that industry has not yet translated academic prototype work into patent-protected commercial products in this specific optimization sub-domain, leaving the competitive landscape open to future entrants.
The most recent filing cohorts (2025–2026) are subject to publication lag and are likely under-counted; the true volume for those years will be higher once applications clear examination. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Explosive post-2022 growth anchored in AI and soil-management classes
Two charts together reveal both the pace of market entry and the technology bets being placed: filing volume shows when interest ignited, while IPC composition shows which technical problems are being addressed.
Annual filing trend
Filings were effectively zero from 2017 through 2021, reached 1 in 2022, then accelerated sharply to 11 in 2023 and 29 in 2024. The 2025 cohort already shows 53 published families, making it the largest year on record, while the 2026 figure of 16 reflects partial-year publication and should be read as a lower bound. The growth trajectory from 2022 onward is steep and uninterrupted in the published record.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
G06Q (business and administrative data processing) leads the IPC mix, followed closely by A01B (soil working in agriculture) and G06N (AI and machine-learning models), together forming the core triad of this landscape. Horticulture and forestry (A01G) and digital transmission (H04L) represent a secondary tier. Lower-frequency classes — image recognition (G06V), wireless networks (H04W), planting and sowing (A01C), pest control (A01M), and drone platforms (B64C) — indicate where adjacent technical problems are only lightly addressed.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Tethered drone system and method for precision agr…
The present invention provides a tethered drone system comprising a base station, an operational drone, and a plurality of support drones connected via a multichannel tether The system enables continuous power supply and delivery of diverse agricultural payloads, including liquids, granules, seeds, and gases, through the operational drone. Support drones… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ai and iot-driven precision farming platform | 1 |
| 2 | Smart farming: machine learning applications for s… | 1 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural observations — maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography — each carry distinct implications for teams deciding whether to enter, partner, or monitor this space.
Pre-commercial emergence phase
The lifecycle evidence shows activity igniting from zero only in 2022, with all momentum indicators pointing to a field still in its formation stage. Academic institutions are filing proof-of-concept work rather than production-ready systems. An R&D team entering now would face minimal blocking IP but would need to plan for the competitive landscape maturing within a three-to-five year window as commercial players discover the space.
Early stageHighly fragmented; no incumbent to displace
The top five filers hold only 15 percent of the top-hundred filers’ combined output, and the leading applicants each hold just 4 patent families. There is no incumbent with a portfolio large enough to create freedom-to-operate risk for a new entrant. The fragmentation also means no single entity can set a de-facto technical standard, so the architecture of future commercial systems remains genuinely open.
Low concentrationNo recorded co-applicant filings in scope
The collaboration evidence shows no co-applicant filings within this corpus. Each university and individual inventor appears to be filing independently. This absence of consortium activity suggests that cross-institutional or industry-academia partnerships have not yet formed around shared platforms, creating an opportunity for a commercial actor to anchor a collaborative R&D programme.
Evidence pendingIndia-only footprint with one PCT filing
India accounts for 109 of the 110 patent records, with a single WIPO PCT application representing the only international protection attempt. This near-total geographic concentration means existing portfolios provide no IP barrier in North America, Europe, or East Asia — regions with the largest precision-agriculture equipment markets. Commercial entrants targeting those markets can build freely without worrying about blocking IP from the current applicant pool.
India-centricGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Academic institutions lead; all top filers are new entrants since 2022
Every applicant with tracked momentum shows the same trend: new entrant. No organization had a prior filing base in this sub-domain, which means current rankings reflect only the most recent filing cycle.
Manipal University Jaipur
Holds 4 patent families and is the joint top filer. Its filings concentrate on soil working in agriculture (A01B), business data processing for agriculture (G06Q), and AI models (G06N), suggesting a system-level focus that integrates sensor-driven soil management with AI decision layers. Momentum is flagged as a new entrant, meaning all activity is recent.
families: 4Anurag University
Also holds 4 patent families and shares the top rank. Its technology emphasis mirrors the leader — soil working (A01B) and business data processing (G06Q) — with a secondary focus on route and logistics optimization under G06Q 10. Like all peers in this corpus, it entered after 2022 with no prior filing history in this domain.
families: 4| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Manipal University Jaipur | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Anurag University | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Suresha S | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| CVR College of Engineering | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Anil D | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| Lovely Professional University | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| K S Rangasamy College of Technology | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| G. Ashwin Prabhu | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served technical branches adjacent to the dominant AI-soil core
The following IPC classes appear in the corpus but at markedly lower frequency than the dominant G06Q/A01B/G06N triad, indicating that their technical problems are recognized but not yet well-addressed by existing filings.
G06V · Image and video recognition for field scouting
G06V accounts for only 13 patent records in a corpus where AI (G06N) and soil management (A01B) each exceed 60 records. Computer-vision techniques for in-field crop-health scouting, weed detection, and canopy mapping are technically mature in adjacent domains (medical imaging, autonomous vehicles) but sparsely applied to precision-ag route optimization here. An entrant with existing vision-pipeline IP could adapt it to field-scouting UAV or ground-robot contexts with relatively low development risk.
Search this in Eureka →H04W · Wireless networks for real-time field-device coordination
Wireless communication networks (H04W) appear in only 11 patent records, despite being a fundamental enabler of any real-time route or application-rate optimization system that must coordinate multiple field devices. LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and 5G-based mesh architectures for agricultural environments are underrepresented. Given the rural connectivity constraints of Indian and export markets, robust low-power wide-area network architectures represent a technically plausible and commercially relevant entry point.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ across technology routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | G06Q 50 · Business, commerce & admin data processing | A01B 79 · Soil working in agriculture | G06N 20 · Computing based on AI models | G06Q 10 · Business, commerce & admin data processing | A01G 25 · Horticulture & forestry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anil D | Strong · 3 | Strong · 3 | Absent | Strong · 2 | Strong · 3 |
| Suresha S | Strong · 3 | Strong · 3 | Absent | Strong · 2 | Strong · 3 |
| Anurag University | Strong · 3 | Strong · 3 | Absent | Strong · 2 | Moderate · 1 |
| Manipal University Jaipur | Strong · 3 | Strong · 4 | Moderate · 2 | Absent | Absent |
| Chandigarh University | Strong · 2 | Strong · 2 | Strong · 2 | Absent | Absent |
| G. Ashwin Prabhu | Strong · 2 | Absent | Strong · 2 | Strong · 2 | Absent |
| CVR College of Engineering | Strong · 2 | Strong · 3 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The analysed corpus contains 110 patent families. Filing activity was negligible before 2022 and has grown sharply since, reaching 53 published families in 2025 — the largest single-year cohort — with 2026 figures still accumulating due to publication lag.
Manipal University Jaipur and Anurag University share the top position with 4 patent families each. The next tier — Anil D, Suresha S, and CVR College of Engineering — each hold 3 families. All top filers are Indian academic institutions or individual inventors; no commercial agritech company appears in the top ranks.
It is an early-stage emerging area. Substantive filing activity began only in 2022, all tracked applicants are flagged as new entrants with no prior filing history in this domain, and citation depth is shallow. The commercial translation of academic prototype work has not yet begun at scale.
India accounts for 109 of the 110 patent records, with a single PCT application representing the only international filing. No granted or pending families have been identified in the United States, European Patent Office, China, or other major agricultural-technology markets.
The three most common IPC classes are G06Q (business and administrative data processing for agriculture), A01B (soil working), and G06N (AI and machine-learning models). This triad suggests the prevailing approach combines AI-driven decision support with soil-condition monitoring to optimize field operations. Horticulture (A01G) and digital transmission (H04L) form a secondary tier.
The under-served branches relative to the dominant triad include G06V (image and video recognition for crop scouting, 13 records), H04W (wireless networks for field-device coordination, 11 records), A01C (planting and sowing, 9 records), and G05D (control of non-electric variables for autonomous actuators, 17 records). None of these gaps constitutes a validated commercial opportunity on evidence alone, but each combines low current filing density with plausible technical relevance to route and application optimization.
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