Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filing surged 467% between 2021 and 2024, climbing from 3 records to 17 in three years before the most recent, still-incomplete filing years.
- Half of all 386 records sit with five assignees, and the top ten account for 63.2% of the field — this is a landscape with a defensible core, not an open one.
- G01Q scanning-probe claims cover only 29.5% of records, meaning most of this corpus is actually built around adjacent measurement, semiconductor and bioinformatics classes, not the microscope itself.
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (17) — 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 386 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 386 published patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine scanning tunneling microscopy or tunneling spectroscopy with the practical engineering problems that determine whether an instrument actually resolves atoms: tip preparation, vibration isolation, cryogenic operation, surface cleanliness, bias spectroscopy and drift compensation. That pairing matters because the microscopy technique itself is decades old; the patenting activity worth watching is in the subsystems that make it usable at scale — automated tip conditioning, low-vibration stage design, and cryostat integration.
Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart are undercounts, not a real slowdown. Read the 2024 data point as the most recent complete year.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 386 records: one tracks when they were filed, the other what they claim.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
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.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G01Q (scanning-probe and nanometric measuring) leads at 29.5% of the 386 records, but C12Q (enzyme/DNA testing, 25.1%), G01N (material analysis, 18.4%) and G16B (bioinformatics, 11.9%) all appear at meaningful share — evidence that a large slice of this corpus applies tunneling-based measurement to biological and materials analysis rather than instrument design alone. Because records carry multiple IPC codes, these shares sum past 100% and should not be added together.
Shares are the percentage of the 386 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Scanning Tunneling Microscopy with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about scanning tunneling microscopy and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US20230194566A1 — Systems and methods for automated tip conditioning for scanning tunneling spectroscopy
Describes a scanning tunneling microscope architecture combining a z-axis scanning assembly, a quantum tunneling tip, x-y sample positioning, and a measurement circuit that applies a relative electrical voltage between tip and sample — built around automated conditioning of the tip rather than manual preparation.Filed by The Regents of the University of California, published 2023-06-22.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5216631A | Microvibratory memory device | 262 |
| 2 | US5307311A | Microvibratory memory device | 189 |
| 3 | US5869751A | Multi-dimensional capacitive transducer | 185 |
| 4 | WO2013177086A1 | Methods and processes for non-invasive assessment of genetic variations | 144 |
| 5 | US20130310260A1 | Methods and compositions for analyzing nucleic acid | 128 |
| 6 | US5449909A | Tunnel effect wave energy detection | 117 |
| 7 | US5510615A | Scanning probe microscope apparatus for use in a scanning electron microscope | 107 |
| 8 | US5455420A | Scanning probe microscope apparatus for use in a scanning electron microscope | 105 |
| 9 | US5865978A | Near-field photolithographic masks and photolithography; nanoscale patterning techniques; apparatus and metho… | 92 |
| 10 | US20080006615A1 | System and method for gemstone microinscription | 90 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older records such as the two microvibratory-memory patents dominate this list; treat citation rank as a signal of historical influence rather than current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the concentration, trend and classification figures are read together.
The core claim space is already occupied
Half of all 386 records in scope sit with just five assignees, and the top ten hold 63.2%. A new entrant filing squarely on tip preparation or vibration isolation is filing into ground that a handful of players have already mapped.
Activity accelerated hard, then the count understates itself
Filings rose from 3 in 2021 to 17 in 2024, a 467% increase, with a peak of 31 in 2022. The 2025-2026 figures in the chart look lower only because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months — they are not evidence of a slowdown.
Most of the corpus isn't instrument-design at all
G01Q, the scanning-probe measurement class, covers under a third of records. Larger and overlapping shares in C12Q, G01N and G16B show that a sizeable portion of this patenting activity is tunneling microscopy applied to biological and materials-analysis workflows, not the microscope hardware itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to scanning tunneling microscopy, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies, counted in records — it is the full ranking the dataset returns, not a curated top list.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 97 records against a fifth-place figure of 13 and a tenth-place figure of 8 — a steep drop-off that signals one organisation built a deliberate filing programme rather than accumulating patents opportunistically.
Filing strategy still centres on the US and Europe
United States filings (141) outnumber EPO (59) and PCT/WIPO (43) routes by a wide margin, with Australia, Hong Kong and Israel each in the mid-teens — a pattern consistent with a technology whose commercial buyers (research institutions, semiconductor fabs) sit predominantly in those jurisdictions.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest recurring pairing links one instrument maker with a small number of named inventors rather than another corporate assignee — collaboration here looks more like inventor mobility than joint R&D ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sequenom Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas | 0 | — |
| Maybell Quantum Industries Inc | 0 | -100% |
| FEI Company | 0 | — |
| Celanese Corporation | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of California | 0 | — |
| Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next questions rather than a single answer.
Check freedom-to-operate on tip conditioning
Automated tip-conditioning claims sit close to the leader's core filings. Any new instrument design that automates tip preparation should be checked against the concentrated top-five holders before committing engineering resources.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkWatch the 2022-2024 filing cohort
The sharpest growth in this dataset happened in the three years before the last complete filing year. That cohort will start reaching examination and grant decisions soon, and it is worth tracking which claims survive prosecution.
Track recent filingsExplore the under-claimed branches directly
Drift compensation and multi-tip positioning show thinner filing density than the core scanning-probe class. A first-mover claim there faces less prior art than one filed against vibration isolation or tip preparation.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
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.
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.
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.
Scanning-probe and nanometric measuring (G01Q) is the largest single class at 29.5% of the 386 records, but material analysis (G01N, 18.4%), enzyme/DNA testing (C12Q, 25.1%) and bioinformatics (G16B, 11.9%) all carry substantial shares too. Because a single patent record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should be read individually rather than summed. The spread shows that a meaningful portion of this patenting activity applies tunneling-based techniques to biological and materials analysis rather than to instrument hardware alone.
Filing density is thinner in specific sub-areas relative to the concentrated core claims held by the top assignees: automated tip-conditioning feedback loops, cryostat-integrated drift compensation, bias-spectroscopy signal processing for defect mapping, and multi-tip array positioning. These are not zero-activity areas, but they carry less entrenched claim coverage than vibration isolation or basic tip preparation, which sit closer to the leading assignee's core portfolio. A first claim in one of the thinner branches faces comparatively less prior art to design around.
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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.