Soft Robotics Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Soft Robotics Patents: Mapping the Leaders, the Filing Curve and the Open Claim Space
Concentrated at the top. The five most active assignees hold 30.1% of all 236 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 45.8% — a field with a defined core group rather than a flat field of single filers. Filings rose from 8 in 2017 to a peak of 31 in 2025 before the most recent (partial) year. The complete-year window shows a decline of 41% from 27 filings in 2021 to 16 in 2024 — read the 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
- 1SANDVIK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AB22
- 2RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA17
- 3AMTOS SOLUTIONS D O O12
- 4SCHMALZ FLEXIBLE GRIPPING INC11
- 5ROLLS ROYCE PLC9
See the full soft robotics patent landscape 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 the soft robotics patent landscape
Who holds the most soft robotics patents?
The dataset’s top-ranked assignee holds 22 records out of 236 in scope, noticeably ahead of the fifth-place assignee at 9. The top five assignees combined hold 30.1% of all records, and the top ten hold 45.8%, so filing is concentrated but not dominated by a single company. Beyond the top ten, the remaining share is spread across a long tail of the 100 ranked assignees, many with only a handful of filings each.
Is soft robotics patent filing growing or slowing down?
Complete-year data shows filings fell 41% from 27 in 2021 to 16 in 2024, which looks like a slowdown at first glance. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete and should not be read as a real decline yet. The honest read is that 2024 is the last fully settled year, and the true 2025-2026 trend will only be clear once later publications catch up.
What patent classes cover soft robotics actuators and control?
B25J, covering manipulators and robots generally, appears in 47.0% of the 236 records and is by far the largest class. G05B (control and regulating systems) and A61B (diagnosis and surgery) follow at 14.4% and 12.3% respectively, showing meaningful overlap into medical device applications. Smaller but notable classes include B23Q (machine tool fittings), A61H (physical therapy), B33Y (additive manufacturing) and B29C (plastics shaping), reflecting how soft robotics claims cut across manufacturing and healthcare uses as well as core mechanics.
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 Soft Robotics Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.