Precision Spraying Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
Precision and Variable Rate Spraying Patents: Who Leads and Where the Gaps Sit
Concentrated at the top. The top 5 ranked assignees account for 81.5% of all 27 records in scope, with the leader alone holding 6. The trend runs from 0 filings in 2017 to a peak of 5 in 2025, with 2026 already showing 2 (partial year). The tracked growth figure — 2021 to 2024, -100% — reflects a genuine dip in a small-numbers field rather than a maturing market pulling back; there simply are not yet enough filers to smooth out year-to-year swings.
- 1MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA LTD6
- 2GUANGZHOU XAIRCRAFT TECH CO LTD5
- 3PAY COLIN4
- 4FAUNAPHOTONICS AGRI & ENVIRONMENTAL AS4
- 5CENTURE APPL LTD3
See the full precision and variable rate spraying analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on this field
Who holds the most patents in precision and variable rate spraying?
The dataset’s leading assignee holds 6 of the 27 records in scope, with the top 5 assignees together accounting for 81.5% of all records. Filing then drops off to a long tail of single-record entrants, several of which are individual named inventors rather than companies. The ranked list covers 22 companies total, and the top 10 combined account for every record in the dataset.
Is patent filing in this field growing or slowing?
Filing volume remains low in absolute terms, with the peak year to date at 5 records in 2025. The tracked comparison from 2021 to 2024 shows a -100% swing, but with totals this small a single filing shifts the percentage sharply, so this should not be read as a market-wide slowdown. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures will likely rise as more records publish.
What patent classes matter most for precision spraying technology?
A01M (pest and vermin control) is the dominant class, appearing in 77.8% of the 27 records, followed by A01B (soil working) at 37.0%. Spraying and atomising (B05B) and aircraft equipment (B64D) each appear in 22.2% of records, reflecting the mix of ground and drone-based spraying platforms in this field. Image recognition (G06V) and robotics (B25J) appear less often, at 14.8% and 11.1% respectively.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Precision and Variable Rate Spraying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.