Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Antenna Design Patent Landscape 2026
- Ten families, one dense core. Every record in this dataset sits under H01Q (antennas), with only scattered secondary filings into MEMS, optics and impedance networks — a narrow, still-forming claim set rather than a mature one.
- Filing has flattened, not accelerated. Activity peaked at 4 filings in 2024 after a 2022 midpoint of 3; there is no sustained upward curve, which is unusual for a topic this actively researched.
- Co-filing is almost absent. Only two co-assignee pairs exist across the whole set, meaning most RIS unit-cell work is being filed by single institutions rather than through joint industry-university programmes.
What the RIS antenna filing record actually shows
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) antenna design — the engineering of tunable unit cells, metasurface antennas and reflectarrays that steer or modulate electromagnetic waves without active RF chains — is a small but structurally interesting filing area. With only 10 patent families captured against a search string that already narrows to unit-cell and metasurface-specific claims, this is a field where individual filings still move the map. The concentration is stark: every one of the 10 records classifies under H01Q (antennas), and secondary IPC exposure into MEMS (B81B, B81C), optical modulation (G02B, G02F) and impedance networks (H03H) each appear only once.
That composition matters for strategy. A single-subclass-dominant field with thin secondary coverage suggests the core antenna claims are being staked out first, while the tunability mechanisms underneath them — MEMS actuation, optical control layers, RF switching — remain comparatively open. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025–2026 counts in particular understate real activity; treat the most recent bars in any trend chart as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 10-family dataset: how filings have moved year over year, and where they classify across the IPC scheme.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were at zero in 2017, rose to a peak of 4 in 2024, and sat at 3 by the 2022 midpoint — a flat-to-declining trajectory rather than a growth curve. The 2026 figure is partial given the data cut-off and the typical 18-month publication lag.
IPC subclass distribution
H01Q (antennas) accounts for all 10 records, with H04B (general transmission) appearing in 3. The remaining subclasses — MEMS, optics, impedance networks, pulse logic — each carry a single record, marking them as exploratory rather than contested.
Shares are the percentage of the 10 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Antenna Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about reconfigurable intelligent surface antenna design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited filings and a representative claim
WO2024146683A1 — Devices and methods for reflecting electro-magnetic radiation for wireless communications
A reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) for reflecting EM radiation for wireless communications, comprising a linear array of unit cells, each unit cell comprising a graphene layer arranged on a silicon substrate and configured to reflect EM radiation at an amplitude depending on the graphene layer's chemical potential, plus a controller that switches that chemical potential between two states to control the reflected amplitude.Filed by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., published 2024-07-11.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN115732937A | 基于集中放大架构的有源智能超表面天线 | 8 |
| 2 | CN116169480A | 基于超表面天线和放大器的有源可重构智能表面 | 3 |
| 3 | US20250361137A1 | Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) integration for analog tunability in reconfigurable intelligent surfaces | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (3 of 3 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Four read-outs from the dataset, each pointed at a decision rather than a description.
The antenna claim itself is the contested ground
Every record in this dataset sits in H01Q, the antennas subclass. Secondary classifications into MEMS, optics and impedance networks each appear only once, meaning the tunability mechanism behind the antenna — not the antenna geometry — is where claim space still has room.
Growth has flattened, not accelerated
A midpoint of 3 filings in 2022 followed by a peak of only 4 in 2024 shows a field that is being explored steadily rather than rushed. That is consistent with a technology still proving out unit-cell reconfiguration mechanisms before committing to broad claim families.
Filings are overwhelmingly solo
Only two co-assignee pairs appear in the whole dataset, one pairing a large Chinese vendor with an individual inventor, the other linking two individually named inventors. Most institutions here are filing alone, which lowers the bar for a new entrant to partner into the space via a named inventor rather than a corporate program.
No single office dominates
China, the United States and WIPO (PCT) each account for 3 of the received filings, with India carrying 1. That even three-way split suggests applicants are still hedging jurisdiction rather than converging on one primary market for RIS antenna protection.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to reconfigurable intelligent surface antenna design, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | HOSSEININEJAD SEYED EHSAN | 1 |
| MUHAMMAD IDBAN ABU HURAIRA | FAGHIH IMANI SEYEDMOHAMMADREZA | 1 |
With only two co-assignee pairs across ten families, joint filing is the exception rather than the norm in this dataset.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Recent-year momentum across the named assignees is flat: none of the tracked institutions — spanning a computing vendor, three Chinese universities, a US university and a glass/ceramics R&D lab — logged a filing in the latest tracked year, reinforcing the plateau seen in the overall trend.
No assignee is currently accelerating
Dell Products L.P., Xiangtan University, Tsinghua University, The Trustees of Princeton University, Corning Research and Development Corporation and Nanjing University of Science and Technology all show zero filings in the latest tracked year. That is consistent with the broader flat trend rather than any single player pulling ahead.
Active, amplifier-integrated metasurfaces lead on influence
The most-cited record in the set describes an active intelligent metasurface antenna built on a centralized amplification architecture, ahead of a second active/reconfigurable metasurface-plus-amplifier filing. Both point to amplifier integration as the sub-theme drawing the most downstream citation.
Corporate-inventor pairing, not corporate-corporate
The strongest co-assignee link pairs Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) with a named individual inventor, not with another company or university. The second pairing links two individually named inventors with no corporate assignee at all — a sign that some of this field's technical contribution is still happening outside institutional programs.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Dell Products L.P. | 0 | — |
| Xiangtan University | 0 | — |
| Tsinghua University | 0 | — |
| The Trustees of Princeton University | 0 | — |
| Corning Research and Development Corporation | 0 | — |
| Nanjing University of Science and Technology | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| MUHAMMAD IDBAN ABU HURAIRA | 0 | — |
Where to take this
Three directions for turning this landscape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Map the tunability mechanism, not just the antenna claim
With all 10 records sitting in H01Q, the differentiator is increasingly the reconfiguration mechanism underneath — MEMS, optical, or impedance-based. Run a mechanism-specific search before drafting.
Explore RIS unit-cell mechanisms in Eureka →Check the two active-amplifier filings before claiming gain integration
The two most-cited records both combine active amplification with the metasurface itself. Any new filing that integrates gain into the unit cell should be checked against these first.
Run a citation check in Eureka →Watch for solo-inventor filings, not just corporate programs
With co-filing almost absent, some of the most technically specific claims in this space come from individually named inventors rather than large assignees. Track inventor names, not just company names.
Set up inventor-level monitoring in Eureka →Common questions about RIS antenna patents
This dataset captures 10 patent families published against a search string targeting reconfigurable unit cells, metasurface antennas, tunable reflectarrays and unit-cell design within the H01Q antenna classification. That is a small, still-forming corpus rather than a mature one. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true number of filings already made but not yet published is almost certainly higher, particularly for 2025 and 2026.
The tracked assignee set includes Dell Products L.P. (Dell), Xiangtan University, Tsinghua University, The Trustees of Princeton University, Corning Research and Development Corporation and Nanjing University of Science and Technology, alongside Huawei Technologies as the assignee behind the featured representative filing. None of these institutions logged a filing in the latest tracked year, so momentum across the named leaders is currently flat rather than concentrated in one player.
WO2024146683A1, filed by Huawei Technologies, claims a reconfigurable intelligent surface built from a linear array of unit cells, where each unit cell has a graphene layer on a silicon substrate that reflects EM radiation at an amplitude depending on the graphene layer's chemical potential, controlled by a switching controller. It is a specific implementation route — graphene-on-silicon chemical-potential switching — rather than a claim over RIS antennas generally. Designs using MEMS actuation, liquid crystal, or PIN-diode switching for amplitude control sit outside its literal scope.
The clearest gaps sit just below the H01Q antenna layer: MEMS-actuated unit-cell tuning, optical chemical-potential control layers, amplifier-integrated active metasurface arrays and impedance-network-based reconfiguration circuits each show only single-digit representation in the secondary IPC classifications. A first claim in any of these areas would need to tie the reconfiguration mechanism specifically to the unit-cell geometry rather than claiming the antenna array alone, since the array-level claims are already the dataset's densest ground.
Based on the tracked trend, filing activity peaked at 4 records in 2024 after sitting at 3 by the 2022 midpoint, showing a flat-to-declining pattern rather than sustained growth. This is not necessarily a sign of waning interest in RIS technology generally — research output in the broader RIS communications field is active — but it does suggest that antenna-specific unit-cell design claims, as distinct from signal-processing or system-level RIS claims, have not yet scaled into a filing wave.
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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.