Precision Spraying Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 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.
- Pest control dominates the claim map. A01M (pest & vermin control) appears in 77.8% of records, far ahead of any other IPC subclass tracked.
- Filing has not scaled past single digits. The peak year so far is 2025 with 5 records, and the 2021→2024 span shows a -100% swing — this is still a thin, early field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 27 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the filing record shows
Precision and variable rate spraying sits at the intersection of agricultural machinery, machine vision and chemical application control. The 27 records in scope span weed-detection cameras, nozzle switching logic, prescription-map execution and latency compensation for moving sprayers — the mechanics that let a machine apply chemical only where it is needed rather than across a whole field. Patent families are the fairer unit here because they strip out duplicate filings across jurisdictions and continuations, and this dataset already ranks assignees on that basis.
Filing activity is recent and volume remains low in absolute terms, with the field's busiest year to date producing only 5 records. Because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years understate real filing activity and should not be read as a slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 27 records: how filing has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim volume.
Filing trend: thin and early
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.
Technology mix: pest control plus soil working lead
A01M (pest & vermin control) covers 77.8% of the 27 records, with A01B (soil working) at 37.0% and B05B (spraying & atomising) and B64D (aircraft equipment) tied at 22.2% each. G06V (image/video recognition) sits at only 14.8%, and B25J (manipulators & robots) at 11.1% — both notably thinner than the core spraying-control classes, given how central detection and robotics are to the stated problem.
Shares are the percentage of the 27 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Precision and Variable Rate Spraying with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about precision and variable rate spraying and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited record in this set
Pesticide spraying control method, device, and storage medium
Disclosed are a pesticide spraying control method, a device, and a storage medium. The method includes planning a spraying route matching an area to be sprayed, mapping the route to a crop prescription map, and determining a spraying control point and matching spraying amount based on crop state information across at least two mapped areas. The spraying control point is associated with an actual spraying point of an operation unmanned aerial vehicle, spaced from the control point by a defined margin.Filed by Guangzhou XAG (Guangzhou Xaircraft Technology Co., Ltd.), dated 2021-12-23.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2005123503A1 | Injection variable rate chemical distribution | 32 |
| 2 | US20210392868A1 | Pesticide spraying control method, device, and storage medium | 13 |
| 3 | US20240284891A1 | Apperatus and method for measuring insect activity | 4 |
| 4 | WO2023247209A1 | Apparatus and method for measuring insect activity | 3 |
| 5 | WO2022268756A1 | Apperatus and method for measuring insect activity | 3 |
| 6 | US20210321553A1 | Methods and systems for applying a remedy for a region under cultivation | 2 |
| 7 | CA3132736A1 | Pesticide spraying control method and apparatus, device, and storage medium | 1 |
| 8 | WO2020110134A1 | "methods and systems for applying a remedy for a region under cultivation" | 1 |
| 9 | AU2012201717A1 | Injection Variable Rate Chemical Distribution | 1 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than of current importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three findings that shape where to file, where to watch, and where a claim might still land clean.
A small group controls most of the claim space
With the leader holding 6 records and the top 5 combined accounting for 81.5% of all 27 records in scope, this is not a fragmented field. The ranked list runs to 22 companies total, and the top 10 combined reach 100.0% of records — meaning every record in this dataset traces to one of the ten most active filers.
Detection and control logic outweigh the hardware classes
A01M dominates the class mix, with A01B (soil working) as the clear second at 37.0%. Machine vision (G06V, 14.8%) and robotics (B25J, 11.1%) are present but thin relative to the core control classes, suggesting the vision and manipulator layers are less crowded than the application-control layer itself.
Growth figures move sharply on a small base
The field's peak year to date is 2025 with 5 filings, and the 2021-to-2024 comparison shows a -100% swing — a reminder that with totals this low, one or two filings shift the percentage dramatically. Recent-year momentum by assignee shows several individual filers each contributing a single record in the latest year rather than any one company pulling ahead.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to precision and variable rate spraying, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and what is still open
The ranked list covers 22 companies counted in records, with filings concentrated among a handful of leaders and a long tail of single-filing entrants including individual inventors.
One filer sets the pace
The leading assignee holds 6 of the 27 records in scope, roughly double the count at fifth place (3). That gap suggests an early but real head start in claim coverage around spraying control and route-to-prescription-map logic.
A compact group of active filers
Fifth place holds 3 records, and the top 5 together cover 81.5% of the 27-record corpus. Below that, filing drops off quickly to single-record entrants, several of them individual named inventors rather than corporate assignees.
Collaboration is limited but present
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest repeated pairings involving individual named inventors filing together on more than one record. This points to small research or founder-led teams rather than large joint-venture structures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| VISHNUPRIYA K | 1 | — |
| VIDHYA K | 1 | — |
| SURESHKUMAR P | 1 | — |
| RATHORE VINEETA | 1 | — |
| Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Guangzhou Xaircraft Technology Co., Ltd. (XAG) | 0 | — |
| FaunaPhotonics Agri & Environmental A/S | 0 | — |
| PAY COLIN | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a field still forming its claim boundaries rather than one with settled dominant designs.
Watch the mid-field, not just the leader
With the top 10 assignees covering 100.0% of records, any new entrant's freedom to operate depends on how the fifth-through-tenth-ranked filers have drawn their claims, not just the leader's.
Explore assignee detail in EurekaTest claim scope against the thin classes
G06V and B25J carry the lowest record shares among the tracked IPC classes — a first claim built around vision-robotics integration may have more room than one built around A01M pest-control logic alone.
Run a white-space check in EurekaCommon questions on this field
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.
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.
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.
Relative to the field's core problem, the vision and robotics classes — G06V and B25J — carry noticeably lower record shares than the control and pest-management classes, suggesting less crowded claim territory there. Specific sub-areas worth checking include latency compensation for boom movement, fusion of weed-detection camera output directly with prescription maps, and nozzle-level validation trial methodology. Any filing decision in these areas should still be checked against the individual records held by the leading assignees.
US20210392868A1, filed by Guangzhou XAG and dated 2021-12-23, covers a method for planning a spraying route, mapping it to a crop prescription map, and determining spray control points and amounts tied to an unmanned aerial vehicle's actual spraying position. It is the most-cited recent record in this dataset at 13 citations, behind only an older 2005 filing on injection variable rate chemical distribution. Anyone building drone-based prescription-map execution should read its claims closely before designing a similar route-to-dose mapping approach.
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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.