Scanning Probe Tips Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Scanning Probe Tips and Functionalization Patents
34.7% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 376 of 1,084 records in scope — dense but not closed to new entrants. Filings reached 57 in 2017, the high point of the whole window. The evidenced three-year span from 2021 to 2024 shows filings falling from 15 to 8 — a 47% decline over years complete enough to compare. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional; they will revise upward as publications catch up with filing dates.
- 1BRUKER NANO INC223
- 2RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA49
- 3OXFORD INSTR ASYLUM RES INC41
- 4CANON KK33
- 5INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION30
See the full scanning probe tips and functionalization 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 about scanning probe tip patents
Who holds the most patents in scanning probe tip and functionalization technology?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 223 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 30 and the tenth-ranked at 17. The top five assignees combined hold 376 of the 1,084 records in scope, or 34.7% of the total. That leaves the majority of records spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so the field is led but not dominated by a single company.
Is patent filing in scanning probe tip technology increasing or decreasing?
Filing peaked in 2017 at 57 records and has declined since, with the most recent complete-year comparison showing a drop from 15 filings in 2021 to 8 in 2024, a 47% decline. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the true recent trend is understated in any chart you look at today. A meaningful read on current momentum requires waiting for those later years to fill in.
What technology areas get the most patent claims in this field?
G01Q, the IPC subclass for scanning-probe and nanometric measuring, appears in 71.3% of the 1,084 records in scope, making it by far the densest class. G01N (material analysis and testing) and G01B (length and dimension measurement) follow at 25.8% and 19.4% respectively. Application-adjacent classes such as semiconductor devices (H01L) and information storage (G11B) each sit under 7%, indicating much lighter claim coverage there.
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 Scanning Probe Tips and Functionalization 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.