Sensor Fusion for Indoor Navigation Patents: Who Files, and Where the Claims Sit
Filing peaked in 2017 at 202 records and has since fallen 42% from 156 filings in 2021 to 91 in 2024, the last complete year in this dataset. Filings peaked at 202 in 2017 and declined to 13 by 2026, though the last two years are undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. The steadier comparison is 2021 to 2024, where filings fell 42% from 156 to 91 — a genuine pullback, not an artefact of recency.
- 1INVENSENSE INC5.2%
- 2QUALCOMM INC5.2%
- 3TRX SYST3.2%
- 4TRUSTED POSITIONING3.1%
- 5SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD3.0%
See the full sensor fusion for indoor navigation 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
What counts as sensor fusion for indoor navigation in this patent search?
This landscape covers patents combining pedestrian dead reckoning, inertial sensor fusion, or map matching with specific mechanisms like step detection, heading estimation, zero velocity update, floor transition detection, drift accumulation correction, or Kalman filtering. It excludes broader indoor positioning approaches, such as pure Wi-Fi or Bluetooth beacon triangulation, unless they intersect with these inertial or filtering mechanisms. The scope is defined by the search string combining these two term sets, covering 2,498 published records from 2015 through mid-2026.
Why did patent filings in this area decline after 2017?
Filings peaked at 202 in 2017 and fell to 91 by 2024, a decline of 42% just in the 2021-2024 window. This likely reflects saturation of core inertial sensor fusion claims after an initial wave of smartphone and wearable-driven filing, pushing later work toward adjacent or more specific technical branches. It is not an artefact of recent-year undercounting, since 2024 is treated as a complete year for publication purposes.
Is the indoor navigation sensor fusion patent space dominated by a few large companies?
No. The leading assignee holds 131 records, but the top five combined account for only 19.7% of all 2,498 records in scope, and the top ten reach just 28.9%. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of contributors, including device makers, chipset vendors, automotive suppliers and universities, rather than concentrated in a handful of dominant players.
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 Sensor Fusion for Indoor Navigation 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.