Pressure Sensor Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 713 families and has declined toward 2026, meaning claim space around diaphragm design and overpressure protection is now largely staked out rather than still forming.
- G01L accounts for 19,912 of the records against a much smaller MEMS-manufacturing share in B81C, showing that measurement-circuit claims dominate over fabrication-process claims in this corpus.
- The United States and Japan lead receiving offices at 5,471 and 3,752 respectively, with China close behind at 3,255, so a filing strategy built only around US/EP coverage misses a large share of active competitive filing.
Filing growth compares 2021 (551 records) with 2024 (470) — 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 21,994 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families published between 2015 and 2026 that claim pressure sensors or pressure transducers with diaphragm, temperature-compensation, MEMS, calibration-drift, or overpressure-protection language, restricted to the core force-and-pressure measurement IPC classes G01L9, G01L19 and G01L7. It spans 21,994 published records, treated here as patent families so that multi-jurisdiction filing and continuation practice do not inflate any single assignee’s apparent footprint.
Publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, so the 2026 filing count is necessarily incomplete and should not be read as a real drop-off yet. The years immediately before it, however, show a genuine decline from the 2017 peak, which is a different signal: it points to a maturing claim space rather than a data artifact.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records split across the IPC subclasses that define the technology's boundaries.
From a 2017 peak to a declining run
Filings ran at 713 in 2017 and had fallen to 32 by 2026 (a partial year), with the 2022 midpoint at 514. That trajectory is a flat-to-declining one rather than a growth curve, consistent with a field where the core diaphragm and piezoresistive-bridge architectures are well established and later filings increasingly target refinements rather than new base claims.
G01L dominates; MEMS fabrication is a smaller slice
G01L (force and pressure measurement) accounts for the large majority of records at 19,912, dwarfing the semiconductor-device classes H01L (2,287) and H10D (1,549) and the MEMS-specific classes B81B (1,147) and B81C (742). A61B appears at 773, reflecting the sensor's use in implantable and diagnostic pressure monitoring. The gap between measurement claims and MEMS-manufacturing claims suggests fabrication process innovation is comparatively less contested ground.
Shares are the percentage of the 21,994 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Pressure Sensor Technology with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about pressure sensor technology and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a representative claim
US7856885B1 — Reinforced piezoresistive pressure sensor
A MEMS-based silicon pressure sensor built for the ocean environment, using a multiple-diaphragm architecture: an inner deformable diaphragm of one thickness formed on a silicon substrate, supported by a thicker outer deformable diaphragm beneath it, with piezoresistive bridges embedded in both diaphragms.Filed by University of South Florida, published 2010-12-28. Its dual-diaphragm, dual-bridge structure is a useful reference point for any new filing that touches overpressure protection through mechanical reinforcement rather than through circuit-side compensation.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5067491A | Barrier coating on blood contacting devices | 637 |
| 2 | US4554927A | Pressure and temperature sensor | 593 |
| 3 | US5810735A | External patient reference sensors | 421 |
| 4 | US6012336A | Capacitance pressure sensor | 365 |
| 5 | US4519401A | Pressure telemetry implant | 356 |
| 6 | US6016702A | High sensitivity fiber optic pressure sensor for use in harsh environments | 350 |
| 7 | US6106476A | Ultra miniature pressure sensor and guide wire using the same and method | 340 |
| 8 | US4274423A | Catheter tip pressure transducer | 328 |
| 9 | US5614677A | Diaphragm gage for measuring the pressure of a fluid | 327 |
| 10 | US6295875B1 | Process pressure measurement devices with improved error compensation | 311 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them; read this table as a map of influential prior art, not as a ranking of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data implies for filing strategy
Three patterns in the numbers carry direct implications for where new claims are likely to survive examination and where they are likely to collide with dense prior art.
The core architecture is largely settled
A decline from 713 families in 2017 to 32 in 2026, with the 2022 midpoint at 514, indicates that the foundational diaphragm and piezoresistive-bridge claim space has been substantially occupied. New entrants should expect to compete on refinement claims — calibration methods, packaging, specific compensation circuits — rather than on base sensor architecture.
Filing activity is not concentrated in one jurisdiction
The United States leads receiving-office volume, but Japan and China each carry a substantial share, and Europe and the WIPO PCT route add further volume behind them. A defensive or freedom-to-operate review confined to the US and EP alone would miss a meaningful portion of the competitive filing record.
Measurement claims outweigh fabrication claims by a wide margin
G01L records outnumber B81C (MEMS manufacturing) records by more than 25 to 1 in this corpus. That imbalance suggests the process side of MEMS pressure-sensor fabrication is comparatively under-claimed relative to the sensing and signal side, which is worth checking against any specific fabrication innovation before assuming it is already covered.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to pressure sensor technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Hitachi, Ltd. | Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd. | 36 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | OBRIEN GARY | 16 |
| Rosemount Inc. | BRODEN DAVID A | 14 |
| Denso Corporation | Nippon Soken, Inc. | 13 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | FEYH ANDO | 13 |
| Denso Corporation | Nagano Keiki Co., Ltd. | 12 |
| Honeywell International Inc. | STEWART CARL E | 11 |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | GRAHAM ANDREW | 11 |
Co-assignee pairing is limited in this corpus — 10 pairs recorded — with the strongest pairing between Hitachi and Hitachi Automotive Systems at 36 shared filings, suggesting most innovation here is filed by single corporate entities rather than through formal joint development structures.
Assignee landscape and momentum
Recent-year momentum figures show a broad pullback in filing activity across the assignees tracked here, consistent with the overall decline from the 2017 peak.
Even active filers are pulling back
Rosemount recorded 1 filing in the latest year, down 75% year over year, while several other tracked assignees including Honeywell International, Robert Bosch, and Endress+Hauser show 0 filings in the latest year with declines around -100% YoY. This pattern points to a broad cooling of filing activity across established players rather than a single company retreating.
Joint filing is rare and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus. The strongest, between Hitachi and Hitachi Automotive Systems at 36 shared filings, is well ahead of the next pairs (Bosch with O'Brien Gary at 16, Rosemount with Broden David A at 14), suggesting most collaborative filing sits inside a handful of long-running internal partnerships rather than open cross-industry collaboration.
Leading filers spread across offices, not just home markets
With meaningful volume in the US, Japan, China, Europe, WIPO/PCT and the UK, competitive filers are not limiting protection to their home jurisdiction. Any new entrant assessing freedom to operate needs to check across this full spread rather than assuming home-market clearance is sufficient.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemount Inc. | 1 | -75% |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Denso Corporation | 0 | — |
| Azbil Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | 0 | -100% |
| Endress+Hauser GmbH+Co. KG | 0 | -100% |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The numbers above frame the field; the next step is usually to test a specific claim or company against the full record rather than the summary.
Check a specific claim against prior art
Run a candidate claim — a compensation circuit, a diaphragm geometry, a calibration method — against the full corpus rather than the top-cited subset shown here, since citation counts favour older records and can hide recent close prior art.
Search prior art in EurekaTrack an assignee's filing momentum directly
Momentum figures here cover a handful of assignees; a full monitoring view across all filers in G01L9, G01L19 and G01L7 will surface newer entrants that have not yet accumulated citation counts or table rankings.
Monitor assignees in EurekaCommon questions on pressure sensor patents
The assignee ranking behind this page is dominated by a mix of established instrumentation and automotive-electronics firms, with Rosemount, Honeywell International, Denso, Azbil, Robert Bosch and Endress+Hauser all appearing among the tracked filers. Recent-year momentum for most of these names has fallen sharply, with several showing 0 filings in the latest tracked year, which reflects the broader decline from the 2017 filing peak rather than any single company exiting the field. Ranking position also depends heavily on whether you count raw publications or patent families, since aggressive continuation filing can inflate a company's apparent share under the former method.
Filing volume in this corpus dropped from 713 families in 2017 to 32 in 2026, with 514 at the 2022 midpoint, a pattern more consistent with claim-space saturation than with declining interest in the technology. Once core diaphragm architectures, piezoresistive bridge designs and overpressure-protection mechanisms are well covered by existing patents, new filings tend to shift toward narrower refinements that are individually smaller in number. Note also that the most recent one to two years in any filing trend are understated because publication typically lags the original filing by around eighteen months.
This landscape is built on G01L9, G01L19 and G01L7, the core force-and-pressure measurement subclasses, and G01L records account for the large majority of the corpus at 19,912 out of 21,994. Related claims also appear in semiconductor-device classes H01L and H10D, MEMS classes B81B and B81C, and diagnostic-use class A61B for implantable pressure sensing. A freedom-to-operate search limited to G01L alone would miss a meaningful share of relevant art sitting in the MEMS and semiconductor classes.
The United States leads receiving-office volume at 5,471 records, followed by Japan at 3,752 and China at 3,255, with Europe (EPO) at 2,999, the WIPO PCT route at 1,173 and the United Kingdom at 594. This spread means competitive filing is genuinely global rather than concentrated in one region, and any clearance or monitoring exercise needs to cover at least these six offices to be reliable. China's volume, close behind Japan's, is a signal worth weighing carefully if manufacturing or sales exposure there is significant.
The gap between the 19,912 records in the core measurement class G01L and the much smaller 742 in MEMS-manufacturing class B81C suggests fabrication-process innovation, such as specific wafer-bonding or diaphragm-forming techniques, is comparatively less contested than sensing and compensation circuitry. Overpressure protection through mechanical reinforcement, seen in representative art like US7856885B1's dual-diaphragm structure, and calibration-drift compensation algorithms are two areas worth checking closely rather than assuming they are fully occupied. Co-assignee collaboration is also thin, with only 10 pairs recorded across the whole corpus, which points to limited joint filing activity that a new entrant partnering strategy could exploit.
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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.