Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, and Where the Field Is Still Open
Filing surged 467% between 2021 and 2024, climbing from 3 records to 17 in three years before the most recent, still-incomplete filing years. Filings ran near flat through the late 2010s, then accelerated sharply from 2021, reaching a peak of 31 in 2022 and holding double digits through 2024's 17 before the incomplete 2025-2026 window pulls the visible line down.
- 1SEQUENOM INC97
- 2THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIV OF ARKANSAS36
- 3MAYBELL QUANTUM IND INC31
- 4FEI CO16
- 5RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA13
See the full scanning tunneling microscopy 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 this landscape
How many scanning tunneling microscopy patents are there?
This dataset contains 386 published patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine scanning tunneling microscopy or tunneling spectroscopy with practical engineering elements such as tip preparation, vibration isolation, cryogenic operation or drift compensation. This is a defined search scope, not a count of every patent ever filed on tunneling microscopy generally, so broader searches will return different totals. The figure is useful for understanding the density of activity in this specific intersection of technique and engineering problem.
Who are the leading patent holders in scanning tunneling microscopy?
The field is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 97 of the 386 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 13 and the tenth-ranked holder at 8. Together the top five assignees account for 50.0% of all records and the top ten for 63.2%, which means over half the field’s activity sits with a small group. A newcomer should check the concentrated holders’ claim scope before filing in the same subsystem areas.
Is patent filing in scanning tunneling microscopy growing or slowing down?
Filings grew 467% from 3 in 2021 to 17 in 2024, with a peak year of 31 filings in 2022, so the underlying trend through the last complete year is clearly upward. The visible drop in 2025 and 2026 in the raw counts is an artefact of publication lag — patent applications typically publish around 18 months after filing, so those two years are still filling in. Treat 2024 as the most recent year with a reliable count, and expect the 2025-2026 figures to rise as more records publish.
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 Tunneling Microscopy 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.