Temperature Measurement Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled since its 2019 peak. 116 families that year against 90 in 2017 and a midpoint of 66 in 2022 — the growth curve is flat to declining, not accelerating.
- G01K dominates almost completely. 1,953 of 1,976 records sit in the core temperature-measurement subclass, with G01J radiation sensing (271) and semiconductor integration (H01L, 148) the largest adjacent branches.
- The named leaders show zero filings in the latest year. Rosemount, GE, Watlow and Toshiba all register 0 in the most recent year tracked — a sign of either portfolio maturity or a reporting lag, not abandonment.
Filing growth compares 2021 (72 records) with 2024 (59) — 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 1,976 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families filed against thermocouple, infrared thermometry and related temperature-sensing art, filtered specifically to documents that address calibration traceability, response time, emissivity, cold-junction compensation or self-heating — the practical failure modes that separate a sensor that works in a lab from one that survives in a furnace, an engine bay or a patient. The scope spans G01K7, G01K11 and G01K13, the IPC subclasses that cover thermoelectric and radiation-based temperature measurement and its calibration.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the most recent data cut-off, drawing on 1,976 published patent families and their receiving-office filings across the United States, China, Europe, Japan, the United Kingdom and the WIPO PCT route.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,976 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the art actually sits in.
A decade of uneven filing
Volume rose from 90 families in 2017 to a peak of 116 in 2019, then eased toward 66 at the 2022 midpoint. The most recent year shows only 9 — expected, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent-year counts understate true activity rather than signalling a collapse.
Concentration in G01K, with radiation and semiconductor overlap
G01K temperature measurement accounts for 1,953 of 1,976 records — near-total overlap given the search scope. The next largest classes are G01J radiation and light measurement (271) and H01L semiconductor devices (148), followed by A61B diagnosis and surgery (143) and G01N material analysis (133), pointing to infrared/radiometric thermometry and sensor-on-chip integration as the main adjacent fronts.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,976 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Temperature Measurement and Thermometry with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about temperature measurement and thermometry and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US4623266A — Cold junction compensation for thermocouple (Rosemount Inc., 1986)
A cold junction compensation bridge for a thermocouple circuit includes a temperature compensation resistor encased in a heat conductive material and directly connected to the same terminal block or strip to which the thermocouple leads are attached. The compensation resistor sits in the same housing chamber as the thermocouple's cold junction so both are subject to the same temperature, a detail specifically aimed at two-wire current transmitters where electronics and terminal blocks occupy separate compartments.Abstract condensed from the original filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4984904A | Apparatus for continuously measuring temperature of molten metal and method for making same | 647 |
| 2 | US4217463A | Fast responsive, high pressure thermocouple | 504 |
| 3 | US20060275933A1 | Thermally conductive ceramic tipped contact thermocouple | 493 |
| 4 | US5061083A | Temperature monitoring device and thermocouple assembly therefor | 491 |
| 5 | US20100246630A1 | Thermocouple temperature sensor with connection detection circuitry | 482 |
| 6 | US20030231698A1 | Apparatus and method for fabricating a semiconductor device and a heat treatment apparatus | 482 |
| 7 | US7789559B2 | Temperature sensor with processable front | 480 |
| 8 | US6311016B1 | Substrate temperature measuring apparatus, substrate temperature measuring method, substrate heating method a… | 480 |
| 9 | US20200288983A1 | Respiratory core body temperature measurement systems and methods | 461 |
| 10 | US5193912A | Probe for sensing and measuring temperature | 407 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older filings accumulate citations simply by being in circulation longer, so treat this as a map of influence rather than of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once families, IPC composition and receiving offices are read together.
Filing is US- and China-led, with Europe a distant third
The United States (642) and China (428) together account for well over half of all receiving-office filings, ahead of the EPO (251), Japan (164), the UK (104) and the WIPO PCT route (99). A filing strategy built only around US and EPO coverage misses the largest single national office in this dataset.
Infrared thermometry is the largest branch outside core G01K
271 records classify in G01J, the radiation and light measurement subclass — the natural home of non-contact and infrared thermometry claims around emissivity correction. That is nearly double the next-largest adjacent class, H01L semiconductor devices at 148.
Named leaders show no latest-year activity
Every assignee surfaced in the recent-momentum data — including Rosemount, GE, Watlow and Toshiba — records zero filings in the most recent tracked year. Given the ~18-month publication lag, this reads as a reporting gap rather than a market exit, but it also means the newest competitive signal will not show up in rankings for another cycle.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only 9 co-assignee pairs appear across 1,976 families, the strongest being a Toshiba–Siemens pairing at 8 joint filings. This is a field of mostly solo filers rather than joint ventures or cross-licensing consortia.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to temperature measurement and thermometry, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where it is open
Assignee activity in this dataset skews toward legacy industrial instrumentation names, with a long tail of single-filing entrants behind them.
A short list of industrial names anchors the field
Rosemount, GE, Watlow, Webster (biosensing), Luxtron and Toshiba form the tracked leadership group, all with long filing histories in thermocouple and calibration art rather than recent bursts.
The rare collaborations cross borders and sectors
The strongest co-assignee pair links a Japanese electronics conglomerate with a German industrial group, suggesting joint development on instrumentation rather than a single national supply chain.
Volume is high but ownership is thin at the top
With only 9 co-assignee pairs and no single assignee showing latest-year growth, the family count is spread across many independent filers rather than concentrated in a handful of dominant portfolios.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemount Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Watlow Electric Manufacturing Company | 0 | — |
| Biosense Webster (Israel) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Luxtron Corporation | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Omega Engineering, Inc. | 0 | — |
| WIKA Alexander Wiegand SE & Co. KG | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, sourcing, or identifying a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the cited core
The most-cited records, including the cold-junction compensation and fast-response thermocouple patents, define the prior art any new thermocouple design will be measured against.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkTrack the assignees showing zero recent activity
Zero latest-year filings from Rosemount, GE, Watlow and Toshoba could mean maturity, a strategy shift, or simply publication lag — worth confirming before assuming the space is open.
Monitor assignee activityScope a filing around the under-claimed branches
Emissivity correction, wearable cold-junction compensation and thermocouple-on-chip integration show activity without a dominant incumbent — a narrower opportunity than the crowded core G01K claims.
Explore white space with EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset's tracked leadership group includes long-established industrial instrumentation names such as Rosemount, GE, Watlow and Toshiba, alongside Webster Biosensing and Luxtron. These are legacy filers with decades of thermocouple and calibration patents rather than recent high-volume entrants. Notably, every one of these named assignees shows zero filings in the most recent tracked year, which given the roughly 18-month publication lag likely reflects a reporting gap rather than an actual halt in R&D.
Filing volume in this dataset peaked at 116 families in 2019, up from 90 in 2017, then eased to 66 by the 2022 midpoint. That pattern reads as flat-to-declining rather than growing. The very low count in the most recent year should not be read literally, since publication lag means the newest filings have not fully surfaced yet.
Cold junction compensation corrects for the fact that a thermocouple's voltage output depends on the temperature difference between its measuring junction and its reference, or 'cold', junction, which is rarely held at a fixed known temperature in practical devices. Patents like US4623266A address this by placing a compensation resistor in the same thermal environment as the cold junction so both experience the same temperature. It recurs throughout this dataset because it is a foundational accuracy problem that nearly every thermocouple-based product must solve, making it a dense area of prior art.
The IPC composition shows meaningful overlap into G01J radiation and light measurement (271 records), consistent with growth in non-contact and infrared thermometry, and into H01L semiconductor devices (148 records), consistent with sensor-on-chip integration. Diagnosis and surgery applications (A61B, 143 records) also appear, pointing to medical and wearable temperature sensing as an active adjacent front. These branches carry less filing density than core G01K, which is where less-crowded claim space is more likely to exist.
The United States leads with 642 filings in this dataset, followed by China at 428, the European Patent Office at 251, Japan at 164, the United Kingdom at 104, and the WIPO PCT route at 99. A strategy focused only on US and European coverage would miss China, which is the second-largest single office tracked here. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate or filing strategy in this space should treat China as a primary jurisdiction, not a secondary one.
Research Temperature Measurement and Thermometry in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole temperature measurement and thermometry corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.