RIS Hardware & Control Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 48.6% concentration. The top 5 of 100 ranked assignees hold 868 of the 1,787 records in scope — nearly half the field sits with a handful of filers.
- Filing kept climbing through 2024. Annual filings rose from 307 in 2021 to 348 in 2024, a 13% increase, after peaking at 430 in 2022.
- Transmission and networking dominate the claims. H04B and H04W together touch most of the corpus, while AI-based control (G06N, 2.2%) and power systems (H02J, 1.9%) remain thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (307 records) with 2024 (348) — 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 1,787 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
This landscape tracks 1,787 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), intelligent reflecting surface, or programmable metasurface terminology with claim language on element phase quantization, insertion loss, control signalling overhead, power consumption, deployment geometry, and passive versus active amplifying variants. The scope spans both passive reflect-only designs and the newer active-amplifying hardware branch, plus the control-plane signalling needed to steer them.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will understate real filing activity — treat 2025 and 2026 figures as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
Annual filing counts and IPC subclass distribution across the 1,787 records in scope, drawn directly from the underlying dataset.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were negligible before 2017, climbed to a peak of 430 in 2022, and held at 348 in 2024 — a 13% rise over the 2021 base of 307. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as later publications catch up.
IPC subclass composition
H04B (transmission, general) appears in 65.9% of records and H04W (wireless networks) in 44.2%, confirming that most filings are framed as communications-system claims rather than pure materials or antenna-structure claims. Records can carry multiple IPC codes, so these shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,787 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 Hardware and Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about reconfigurable intelligent surface hardware and control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaKey patents and a representative recent filing
Reconfigurable intelligent surface integrated on compact drones for wireless network survey (US20260106646A1)
Filed by Dell Products L.P. and published 2026-04-16, this filing mounts a reconfigurable intelligent surface on a drone platform to survey candidate deployment locations before permanent installation. Passive beamforming is achieved by controllably tilting the surface as the drone moves between candidate heights and positions in a dense urban environment, with the surface also coupling user-equipment signal paths.Abstract condensed from the original filing for readability.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20220014935A1 | Systems and methods using configurable surfaces for wireless communication | 197 |
| 2 | US20210288698A1 | Method for Intelligent Reflecting Surface Aided Terahertz Secure Communication System | 188 |
| 3 | WO2021207748A2 | Methods and apparatus for channel reconstruction in intelligent surface aided communications | 145 |
| 4 | US20210126359A1 | Data processing method and apparatus with wireless communication system including intelligent reflecting surf… | 121 |
| 5 | US20220052764A1 | Media-based reconfigurable intelligent surface-assisted modulation | 91 |
| 6 | US20220322321A1 | Reconfigurablle intelligent surface (RIS) information update | 68 |
| 7 | US20220077919A1 | Techniques to use reference signals for intelligent reflecting surface systems | 55 |
| 8 | US20220059943A1 | Multi-layer reconfigurable surface for an antenna | 52 |
| 9 | CN111865387A | 智能反射面辅助无线通信系统的波束成形设计方法 | 49 |
| 10 | US20220321198A1 | Dynamic control of an unmanned aerial vehicle using a reconfigurable intelligent surface | 44 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not of current relevance.
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. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern tells a claims strategist
Four read-outs from the concentration, composition and momentum data that matter for where to file next.
The field's core claims are already staked
With 868 of 1,787 records concentrated among five assignees, foundational beamforming and phase-control claims in the busiest subclasses are likely to run into dense prior art. New entrants competing head-on in H04B/H04W claim space should expect crowded office actions.
Even the leader's pace has cooled from its peak
The top-ranked assignee filed 7 records in the latest year, down 81% year-on-year, consistent with the broader pattern of publication lag rather than a real pullback — 2022's peak of 430 filings across the field has not been repeated in complete-year data since.
AI-driven control logic is a small slice of current claims
Only 40 of 1,787 records carry G06N codes and 34 carry H02J (power supply), even though control signalling overhead and power consumption are both named in the search scope. Claim language on adaptive or learned control policies for RIS elements remains comparatively open.
Filing is spread across major offices, not locked to one
The United States leads with 557 records, followed by China at 327, WIPO/PCT at 319 and the EPO at 312 — a genuinely multi-jurisdictional field rather than one dominated by a single national office.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to reconfigurable intelligent surface hardware and control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
The ranked leaders account for a majority of filings, but the concentration curve flattens quickly after the top few, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
One assignee sits well ahead of the rest
The leading assignee's 621 records dwarf the fifth-place figure of 50, meaning the drop-off after the top filer is steep rather than gradual. Firms entering this space should expect the leader's claim footprint to overlap most core RIS control and beamforming approaches.
Some filings are jointly held, not solely corporate
The strongest co-assignee pairing links a corporate filer with an individual inventor-assignee, appearing together on 60 records, with two more pairs at 39 each. This pattern suggests structured inventor arrangements around a small set of core patents rather than pure in-house R&D.
Beyond the top ten, filings thin out fast
Tenth place holds 29 records against a leader at 621 — the ranked leaders combined (top 10) cover 59.2% of all 1,787 records, leaving the remaining 90 ranked companies to split the rest. That long tail is where narrower, defensible niche claims are more likely to survive examination.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Inc. | 7 | -81% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 1 | -67% |
| Dell Products L.P. | 0 | -100% |
| ZHANG YU | 0 | — |
| InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| LY HUNG DINH | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific claims and specific assignees.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claim footprint
With one assignee holding 621 of 1,787 records, any new filing in core beamforming or phase-control claims should be checked against that portfolio first.
Run a claims comparison in Patsnap EurekaMap the under-claimed control and power branches
G06N and H02J coverage sits below 3% of records each, well under the transmission and networking classes — worth a deeper subclass-level pull before drafting.
Explore white space in Patsnap EurekaTrack momentum, not just historical totals
Recent-year counts are still filling in due to publication lag; re-run the trend view periodically rather than treating 2025-2026 figures as final.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on RIS hardware and control patents
This dataset covers 1,787 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that match RIS, intelligent reflecting surface, or programmable metasurface terminology combined with hardware and control claim language such as phase quantization, insertion loss, and deployment geometry. The true figure is somewhat higher because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years are still incomplete. Counting by patent family, as this ranking does, gives a fairer picture than counting raw published documents, which can inflate totals through continuations and multi-jurisdiction filings.
Filing is concentrated: the top 5 of 100 ranked assignees hold 868 of the 1,787 records in scope, or 48.6% of the field, and the leading assignee alone accounts for 621 records against 50 at fifth place. That said, the top 10 combined only reach 59.2% of all records, meaning a long tail of smaller filers and individual inventor-assignees still holds a substantial share. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at both the concentrated top and the fragmented remainder, since strategy differs sharply between the two groups.
Passive RIS designs reflect and phase-shift incident signals without adding energy, typically achieved through element-level phase control such as controllable tilting or reflective phase quantization, as seen in the representative drone-survey filing in this dataset. Active amplifying variants add gain at the element level, which raises power consumption and control signalling overhead — both explicitly part of this search scope. The power-supply IPC class (H02J) covers only 1.9% of records, suggesting that active-variant power management claims are comparatively underdeveloped relative to passive-surface control claims.
H04B (transmission, general) appears in 65.9% of the 1,787 records and H04W (wireless communication networks) in 44.2%, making communications-system framing the dominant claim style rather than pure antenna or materials-science framing. H04L (digital information transmission) and H01Q (antennas) follow at 20.4% and 12.2% respectively. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages sum to well over 100%, and they should be read as coverage rates against the full record count rather than as a breakdown that totals to 100%.
Filings rose from 307 in 2021 to 348 in 2024, a 13% increase, after peaking at 430 in 2022 — the most recent complete-year data available. Figures for 2025 and 2026 in this dataset show far lower counts, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual slowdown, since not all filings from those years have published yet. Any assessment of current momentum should rely on the 2021-2024 window rather than the partial final years.
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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.