Pneumatic Soft Gripper Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
A data-backed view of pneumatic soft gripper patents: who leads filings, how the technology composition breaks down across IPC classes, and where claim space is still open.
Filing growth = 2021 (11 records) → 2024 (9); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 120 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the pneumatic soft gripper filing record shows
Pneumatic soft grippers sit at the intersection of compliant materials and fluid actuation: claims cover elastomeric fingers, spiral and fiber-optic sensing, and the pneumatic channels that inflate or twist a gripping surface around an object. The dataset in scope spans 120 records published between 2015 and 2026, with 68 assignees appearing in the ranking. Filing activity peaked in 2019 and has since settled into a lower, still-active band — publication lag means the most recent one to two years understate real filing volume.
The composition of IPC classes points to where the actual engineering claims sit: overwhelmingly in manipulator and robot mechanisms (B25J), with secondary clusters in plastics shaping, fluid-pressure actuation, and — more narrowly — harvesting, surgical, and material-handling applications. That secondary spread is where application-specific white space tends to open up, since B25J claims cover the gripping mechanism itself rather than the task it performs.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 120-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim language.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 12 in 2017 to a peak of 17 in 2019, then eased to 11 by 2021 and 9 by 2024 — an 18% decline over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B25J (manipulators and robots) covers 68.3% of the 120 records in scope, making it the dominant class by a wide margin. B29C, B29D and F15B each sit near 8-9%, reflecting fabrication and actuation claims, while A01D, G06F, A61B and B65G mark narrower application niches at 4-6% each. Records can carry multiple classes, so these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 120 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Soft Robotics: Pneumatic Soft Gripper Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about soft robotics: pneumatic soft gripper patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Pneumatic soft robotic spiral gripper with fiber optic sensor (US20230122515A1)
Describes a pneumatic soft robotic spiral gripper built around an elastic spine with an embedded fiber optic sensor and a pneumatic spiral channel twining around that spine, formed in a soft gripping material. A fabrication method is also claimed, using a mold with an outer wall and a spiral-shaped rod to form the spiral channel around the spine.Filed by University of Georgia Research Foundation, published 2023-04-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2018087546A1 | A robotic fruit picking system | 139 |
| 2 | US20170203443A1 | Soft robotic grippers for cluttered grasping environments, high acceleration movements, food manipulation, an… | 108 |
| 3 | US20190030714A1 | Servo-pneumatic control systems for soft robotic actuators | 51 |
| 4 | US6494851B1 | Real time, dry mechanical relaxation station and physical therapy device simulating human application of mass… | 42 |
| 5 | US20190299424A1 | Field- assembled soft gripping for industrial and collaborative robots | 41 |
| 6 | CN111571623A | 一种可变刚度气动软体抓手 | 31 |
| 7 | US20180281200A1 | User-assisted robotic control systems | 30 |
| 8 | US20200315429A1 | Soft Actuators for Pop-Up Laminate Structures | 23 |
| 9 | US10179411B2 | Soft robotic grippers for cluttered grasping environments, high acceleration movements, food manipulation, an… | 21 |
| 10 | US10569422B2 | End of arm tools for soft robotic systems | 20 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of present-day importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three figures from the dataset that matter more than the raw counts.
The top 5 hold under half the field
The top 5 assignees combined account for 42.5% of all 120 records in scope, with the leader alone at 17. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants — a field with a clear leader but no lock-out.
Mechanism claims dwarf application claims
B25J (manipulators and robots) appears on 68.3% of records, far ahead of any application-specific class. Claim space around the gripping mechanism itself is dense; application niches such as harvesting (A01D, 5.8%) or surgery (A61B, 4.2%) are comparatively open.
Activity has cooled from its 2019 peak, not collapsed
Filings fell from 11 in 2021 to 9 in 2024, an 18% decline over that span, after peaking at 17 in 2019. That is a cooling from an early surge, not a technology in retreat — 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Filing is US-led but genuinely multi-jurisdiction
The United States receives the most filings (34), followed by China (21) and India (20), with Europe and WIPO/PCT each near 13. That spread suggests the technology is being protected across manufacturing and agricultural markets alike, not filed defensively in one jurisdiction only.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to soft robotics: pneumatic soft gripper patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mechanism-heavy field with a long tail of niche applicants. These are the natural next steps for a team evaluating where to file or partner.
Stress-test a claim against the cited base
Run a candidate claim against the most-cited records in this corpus to see how much of the pneumatic-channel and fiber-sensing space is already staked out.
Explore claim charting in EurekaWatch the application niches, not just B25J
Harvesting, surgical and material-handling applications carry far fewer records than the core mechanism class — track new entrants there before they consolidate.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaMap the long tail for partnership or acquisition targets
With 68 assignees ranked and most holding only a handful of records, single-filing entrants may hold narrow but useful claims worth licensing.
Screen assignees in EurekaCommon questions on pneumatic soft gripper patents
The ranking covers 68 assignees across 120 records in scope, and it is led by a single company with 17 records — well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee, which holds 3. That gap indicates one clear leader rather than a tightly bunched group at the top. Beyond the top 10, which together hold 53.3% of all records, the field spreads into a long tail of assignees with only one or two filings each, including universities and smaller robotics firms.
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 17 records and eased to 9 by 2024, an 18% decline over the 2021-2024 span. That is a cooling from an early surge rather than a collapse, and the two most recent years in the dataset are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as incomplete rather than as evidence of a continued slowdown.
Manipulator and robot mechanism claims (IPC class B25J) dominate, appearing on 68.3% of the 120 records in scope. Secondary overlaps sit in plastics shaping and fabrication (B29C, B29D) and fluid-pressure actuation (F15B), each around 8-9%, reflecting how these grippers are built and driven. Narrower application overlaps appear in harvesting, digital control, surgery and material handling, each in the 4-6% range, marking where task-specific claims are still comparatively sparse.
The technology composition shows claim density concentrated in the core gripping mechanism (B25J) and in fabrication and actuation classes, while application-specific niches such as harvesting, surgical manipulation and material handling each account for only 4-6% of records. That imbalance suggests the underlying mechanism space is well-claimed but task-specific integrations, such as sensing-enabled surgical grasping or high-throughput conveying applications, remain comparatively open. A first claim in these niches would likely combine an established pneumatic actuation mechanism with a novel sensing or control integration for the specific task.
It is moderately concentrated: the top 5 assignees hold 42.5% of all 120 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 53.3%. That means roughly half the field sits with a small number of established filers, while the other half is distributed across a long tail of 58 or more assignees with only a handful of records each. For a new entrant, this points to a field where a leader exists but has not locked out competition — the door remains open for well-targeted claims outside the leader's core mechanism.
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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.