Space Telescope Optical Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Space Telescope Optical Design Patents: Concentration, Momentum and Open Ground
Concentrated at the top. the leading assignee holds 24 of 104 records in scope, and the top 5 combined account for 64.4% of all 104 records. Annual filings climbed from 13 in 2017 to a peak of 17 in 2022, then declined toward a complete-year low of 1 in 2024 (down from 4 in 2021, a -75% move over that three-year span). Treat 2025 and beyond as undercounted rather than as evidence of a cooling field.
- 1CSO CO LTD24
- 2RAYTHEON CO20
- 3CHOI YOUNGWAN9
- 4UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS REPRESENTED BY THE ADMINISTRATOR NAT AERONAUTICS & SPACE ADMINISTRATION8
- 5THALES SA6
See the full space telescope optical design 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 on this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in space telescope optical design?
Ownership in this landscape is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 24 of the 104 records in scope, and the top 5 assignees together account for 64.4% of all records. Beyond the top 10, which hold 83.7% combined, the ranking of 32 companies tapers into a long tail of single- or few-filing entities. This means a small number of organisations set the baseline prior art that any new filer must clear, while the rest of the field is fragmented rather than consolidated in a second tier.
Is patent filing in space telescope optics still growing?
Filings peaked at 17 in 2022 and had fallen to 1 by 2024, a -75% move from the 4 filed in 2021. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset will always look artificially low and should not be read as proof the field is cooling. The safest complete-year comparison available right now is 2021 to 2024, and that comparison does show a real pullback from the 2022 peak.
What patent classes cover space telescope optical design?
G02B, optical elements and systems, dominates with 82.7% of the 104 records in scope. Radiation and light measurement (G01J) follows at 18.3%, and photographic apparatus (G03B) at 6.7%. Spacecraft-specific classification (B64G) appears in only 3.8% of records, which indicates most claims are drafted as general optical instrumentation or measurement methods rather than as spacecraft-specific structural hardware, widening the relevant prior art pool beyond aerospace-labelled filings.
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 Space Telescope Optical Design 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.