Vision-Language Model Patents: Who Leads Industrial Inspection 2026
- Zero to accelerating. Filings sat at zero in 2022 and rose to a peak of 22 in 2024 — this is a field with almost no history before very recently.
- One filer dominates the top of the table. The leader holds 13 of 42 records, and the top 5 assignees combined account for 61.9% of all records in scope.
- Claim space is concentrated but not closed. The top 10 assignees cover 81.0% of records, leaving a real long tail among the 19 ranked companies for anyone filing now.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 42 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review maps patent activity where vision-language models meet industrial inspection — filings that combine text-prompt-driven image understanding with defect detection, anomaly recognition or explainability requirements typical of factory and field inspection settings. The scope spans zero-shot anomaly detection, prompt-based defect classification and adaptation or latency claims tied to deploying large vision-language models on inspection tasks, rather than vision-language research generally.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, drawing on 42 published records assigned across 19 ranked companies. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in any trend understates real filing activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 42 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings held at zero through 2022, then rose sharply to a peak of 22 in 2024 — a compressed history that means most prior art in this field is under four years old. The 2026 figure of 4 is a partial year and will understate final activity once later filings publish.
IPC subclass composition
G06V (image/video recognition) appears on 64.3% of the 42 records, well ahead of G06F (electric digital data processing) at 45.2% and G06N (AI computing models) at 31.0%. Smaller shares in G06T, H04N, B60W, G06Q and H04L mark where inspection-specific claims — image generation, video pipelines, vehicle control integration, transmission — sit alongside the core recognition claims. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the 42-record base.
Shares are the percentage of the 42 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vision-Language Models for Industrial Inspection with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vision-language models for industrial inspection and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20240354336A1 | Multimodal semantic analysis and image retrieval | 38 |
| 2 | US20250236314A1 | Model predictive path integral controller guided by large vision language model for intelligent autonomous ve… | 4 |
| 3 | WO2025101175A1 | LLM-centric agile image classification | 4 |
| 4 | US20250292687A1 | Environmental text perception and toll evaluation using vision language models | 3 |
| 5 | US20260100042A1 | Iterative input refinement for multi-modal language models | 2 |
| 6 | US20260094424A1 | System and method for adapting vision-language models with hypernetworks | 1 |
| 7 | US20260094442A1 | Machine learning-based summarizations and vector representations for identifying relevant video segments | 1 |
| 8 | US20260050864A1 | Scalable review of UAV delivery aborts | 1 |
| 9 | US20260037730A1 | Adjusting probability of an end-of-sentence token in a generative artificial intelligence model | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records, so treat this as a signal of influence on later filings rather than of current commercial importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the dataset that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
The top of the table is dense, the rest is thin
One assignee holds 13 of the 42 records outright, and the top five combined reach 61.9% of all records in scope. Below that line, the drop to fifth place at 3 records and tenth place at just 1 shows a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants rather than a second tier of established players.
Growth is recent and still accelerating
The midpoint year 2022 recorded zero filings; by 2024 the figure had reached 22, the peak so far. That trajectory — flat, then a sharp step up within two years — indicates the field only became commercially interesting to filers very recently, and the partial 2026 figure will revise upward as later filings publish.
Filing is US-centred with a PCT and India tail
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 25 of 42 records, with WIPO/PCT filings at 7 and India at 4 forming the next tier. Europe, China and the United Kingdom each register single-digit counts, suggesting protection strategy in this field is still largely domestic-US or PCT-routed rather than multi-jurisdiction from filing.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vision-language models for industrial inspection, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the openings are
The ranked leaders sit alongside inspection-adjacent players from robotics, aviation and automotive — a sign the technology is being pulled into vertical use cases rather than staying purely in vision-model research.
A single filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 13 of the 42 records, more than four times the fifth-place count of 3. That gap suggests an early and sustained filing programme rather than a single opportunistic batch, and it sets the baseline any new entrant's claims will be measured against.
Most ranked companies hold a handful of filings
Beyond the leading group, filing counts fall off quickly — tenth place holds just 1 record. This is typical of a field still forming: many companies are testing claim positions with single filings rather than building portfolios yet.
Automotive and aviation names sit inside a vision-model dataset
Vehicle-control and aviation-linked assignees appear in this set alongside core AI and cloud filers, and B60W (hybrid/joint vehicle control) claims touch 7.1% of the 42 records. That crossover signals vision-language inspection claims are being written into autonomous-vehicle and drone-inspection contexts, not just factory-floor defect detection.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Google LLC | 1 | 0% |
| NVIDIA Corp | 0 | -100% |
| NEC Laboratories America Inc | 0 | — |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Milestone Systems | 0 | -100% |
| Wing Aviation LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | 0 | — |
| Honda Motor Co Ltd | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a fast-forming field with a dominant early filer and a thin second tier — the next steps depend on whether you are filing, licensing or freedom-to-operate checking.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claims
With one assignee holding nearly a third of all 42 records, a design-around review should start with that portfolio before assuming open claim space.
Explore assignee claims in Eureka →Map the under-claimed branches before they fill
Latency, prompt-vocabulary design and explainability claims are thin relative to core recognition filings — a narrow window for first claims.
Run a white-space search in Eureka →Track the 2024 peak through to full publication
The 2025–2026 counts will rise as filings clear the publication lag; re-checking this trend in six months will sharpen the momentum read.
Set a monitoring alert in Eureka →Common questions on this landscape
This landscape covers 42 published records dated between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 data cut-off. Filing activity was essentially zero before 2022 and rose to a peak of 22 records in 2024, so the field's patent history is very compressed. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts will rise as more filings clear examination and publish.
One assignee leads with 13 of the 42 records in scope, well ahead of the rest of the ranked field. The top 5 assignees combined hold 61.9% of all records, and the top 10 hold 81.0%, which means a small group of companies controls most of the documented claim space. Below that, filing counts drop quickly — fifth place holds 3 records and tenth place holds just 1 — indicating a long tail of companies each testing a single filing rather than building a portfolio.
The dominant IPC subclass is G06V, image and video recognition, appearing on 64.3% of the 42 records, followed by G06F (general digital data processing, 45.2%) and G06N (AI computing models, 31.0%). Smaller but notable shares sit in G06T (image generation/processing), H04N (video/pictorial communication), B60W (vehicle control) and G06Q (business/admin processing), showing the technology is being claimed both as core recognition method and as an integration layer inside vehicle and business systems. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the 42-record total.
The lower-density IPC branches relative to the core G06V recognition claims are the clearest signal: inference-latency reduction for edge deployment, prompt design for defect-specific vocabularies, and explainability outputs for audit trails all appear far less frequently than basic recognition and classification claims. Combined with the long tail below the top assignees — many companies holding only one or two records — there is room for narrowly scoped claims in these adjacent areas before the leading filers extend their coverage there. Any first claim in these branches should be checked against the most-cited records first, since those define the baseline prior art.
US20240354336A1, covering multimodal semantic analysis and image retrieval, is cited 38 times — far ahead of the next-highest record at 4 citations. That gap suggests it establishes foundational claim language that later prompt-based defect-detection and inspection filings build on or design around. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older, foundational records rather than currently commercially dominant ones, so this should be read as a marker of technical influence, not market strength.
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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.