RIS Beamforming Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Beamforming Patents
Filing peaked in 2023 at 56 families, then slowed — the midpoint year 2022 already carried 47, so growth had flattened before the most recent partial year. Filings moved from zero in 2017 to a peak of 56 in 2023, with 2022 already at 47 — the growth curve had largely flattened by the midpoint of the window rather than continuing to climb into the peak year.
- 1QUALCOMM INC51
- 2SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD25
- 3HUAWEI TECH CO LTD17
- 4DELL PROD LP8
- 5GOOGLE LLC7
See the full reconfigurable intelligent surface beamforming 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 RIS beamforming patents
How many patent families cover reconfigurable intelligent surface beamforming?
This landscape tracks 242 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine RIS or intelligent-reflecting-surface terminology with claims on passive beamforming, phase configuration, reflection beamforming or beam steering. The figure counts families rather than raw document counts, which is the fairer unit since it neutralises duplicate continuation and multi-jurisdiction filings of the same invention. Filing activity is concentrated from 2020 onward, with a peak of 56 families in 2023.
Who are the leading filers in RIS beamforming?
The corpus includes major telecom-equipment and technology filers alongside university and research-institute assignees, with a co-filing network built around a small group of named inventors tied to one large assignee. Recent-year data shows every tracked major assignee at zero filings in the most recent year, which given the roughly 18-month publication lag likely understates true recent activity rather than indicating an actual pullback. No single company holds a dominant multi-year lead in this dataset.
Is RIS beamforming patent activity still growing?
Filing rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 56 families in 2023, but the growth had already largely flattened by 2022, which logged 47 filings. That pattern — rapid rise followed by a plateau rather than continued acceleration — suggests the field’s claim space around core beamforming methods is now well-established rather than still opening up. The most recent one to two years in any such trend are understated due to publication lag, so a renewed rise is possible but not yet visible in the data.
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 Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Beamforming 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.