Voice Coil Motor Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 66.5% held by five. The top 5 assignees account for 479 of the 720 records in scope — a field where a handful of camera-module suppliers set the terms.
- Filing has cooled since 2017. Annual filings peaked at 102 in 2017 and had fallen to 37 by the 2022 midpoint, with the trend continuing downward into the most recent, still-incomplete year.
- Optics, not motors, dominates the claims. G02B (optical elements & systems) appears in 84.6% of the 720 records, ahead of H04N, H02K and G03B — control-specific H02P sits at just 8.5%.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 720 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine voice coil motor or micro-actuator claims with autofocus, stroke-and-force, tilt control, optical image stabilization or hysteresis language, classified under H02K33, G02B7 or H04N23. The scope is narrow by design: it targets the actuator mechanisms that move camera optics, not motors or lenses in general.
Because the search sits at the intersection of motor design and camera-module engineering, most records carry optical-system classes alongside motor classes — a pattern the IPC composition below makes explicit. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year understates real filing activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 720 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings peaked in 2017 and have not recovered
Annual filings hit 102 in 2017, the high point of the whole window, then declined to 37 by 2022. The slide continues toward the most recent year, though that final year is still partial and will understate true activity once publication catches up.
Optical integration outweighs motor-control claims
G02B (optical elements & systems) touches 84.6% of the 720 records, with H04N, H02K and G03B each present in roughly half. H02P, the subclass specific to motor-control electronics, appears in only 8.5% — a sign that most filings claim the actuator as part of a camera module rather than as a standalone drive-control invention.
Shares are the percentage of the 720 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Voice Coil Motors and Micro-Actuators with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about voice coil motors and micro-actuators and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US10924675B2 — Optical image stabilization with voice coil motor for moving image sensor
The patent describes a camera actuator combining an autofocus voice coil motor and a separate optical image stabilization voice coil motor sharing a common set of magnets. The autofocus motor moves a lens carrier along the optical axis; the OIS motor moves the image sensor carrier independently, allowing stabilization without moving the lens group.Assignee: Apple Inc. — Published 2021-02-16.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190121103A1 | Rotational ball-guided voice coil motor | 188 |
| 2 | WO2016156996A1 | Dual voice coil motor structure in a dual-optical module camera | 181 |
| 3 | US20190235202A1 | Folded camera with actuator for moving optics | 136 |
| 4 | US20130136438A1 | Voice coil motor and driving mehod thereof | 128 |
| 5 | US20160018720A1 | Magnetic shielding between voice coil motors in a dual-aperture camera | 122 |
| 6 | US20150365568A1 | Voice coil motor optical image stabilization wires | 97 |
| 7 | US20190049687A1 | Rotational ball-guided voice coil motor | 84 |
| 8 | WO2017156462A1 | Optical image stabilization with voice coil motor for moving image sensor | 84 |
| 9 | US20200264403A1 | Linear ball guided voice coil motor for folded optic | 82 |
| 10 | WO2014100516A1 | Voice coil motor optical image stabilization | 82 |
Citation counts favour older records in any searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence within this dataset, not as a measure of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Read together, the concentration figures, the filing trend and the IPC composition point to a field where the mechanical core is well claimed and the remaining room sits at the edges — control electronics, cross-module integration and measurement.
Five assignees set the baseline
With 479 of 720 records concentrated among five companies, freedom-to-operate work in this space starts with those portfolios, not a broad novelty search. The leader alone holds 206 records.
A field past its filing peak
Volume peaked in 2017 and had roughly halved by the 2022 midpoint, with the decline continuing since. That pattern is more consistent with a maturing mechanical design space than with an area still being actively defined.
Control electronics is comparatively open
While G02B optical integration appears in 84.6% of records, H02P — the subclass for motor-control electronics specifically — appears in only 8.5%. Drive-control and closed-loop schemes look less occupied than the mechanical actuator structures around them.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to voice coil motors and micro-actuators, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking behind this landscape covers 94 companies — the full set the data returns, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Filing activity is heavily front-loaded: the leader alone holds 206 records, more than triple the fifth-place total of 52, and by tenth place volume has dropped to 8.
A single dominant filer
The top-ranked assignee's 206 records make it the clear reference point for prior-art searches in this space; its filing pattern effectively sets the boundary of what is already claimed in core actuator structures.
A tighter second tier
Fifth place holds 52 records — still substantial, but a large step down from the leader. Together the top five account for 66.5% of all 720 records, leaving the remaining 89 ranked assignees to split the rest.
Recent activity has slowed across the board
Several of the most active historical assignees recorded zero filings or steep year-on-year declines in the latest tracked year, consistent with the overall downward filing trend rather than a single company's pullback.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Corephotonics Ltd. | 1 | -67% |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| LG Innotek Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Bolymedia Holdings Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsumi Electric Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| LG Electronics Inc. | 0 | — |
| Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The data points to a mechanically mature field with open room in control electronics and cross-module integration. The next steps depend on whether the goal is clearance, licensing or new filing.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top 5
With 66.5% of records held by five assignees, a targeted FTO review of their portfolios covers most of the practical risk before a broader search is needed.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaProbe the H02P control-electronics gap
At 8.5% of records, motor-control claims are comparatively sparse next to the optical and mechanical classes — a candidate area for new filing strategy.
Map white space in EurekaCommon questions about voice coil motor patents
Filing in this dataset is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 206 of the 720 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 479 records, or 66.5% of the total. That leaves the remaining 89 of the 94 ranked assignees splitting the rest of the field, with volume falling off quickly — tenth place holds only 8 records. Anyone doing competitive tracking in this space should start with the leader's portfolio, since it sets the practical boundary for prior art in core actuator structures.
No — filing peaked at 102 records in 2017 and had declined to 37 by the 2022 midpoint, with the trend continuing downward since. This does not necessarily mean the technology is stagnant; it more likely reflects a mechanical design space that has already been heavily claimed, pushing new activity toward adjacent areas like control electronics. Note that the most recent year in the data is partial, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The core search spans H02K33 (electric motors), G02B7 (optical element mountings) and H04N23 (image capture electronics), reflecting that voice coil motors in this context are almost always claimed as part of a camera module rather than as standalone motors. Within the 720 records, G02B classes appear most often at 84.6%, followed by H04N at 50.3%, H02K at 50.1% and G03B at 49.0%. Because a single record can carry several classes, these figures add up to more than 100%.
The clearest gap relative to the mechanical and optical claim density sits in motor-control electronics: H02P, the subclass specific to drive-control schemes, appears in only 8.5% of the 720 records versus 84.6% for optical integration under G02B. Sub-areas like closed-loop hysteresis compensation, low-power drive electronics and multi-actuator synchronization show comparatively light coverage. These are reasonable areas to probe for new filing rather than competing directly on lens-carrier or magnet-shielding mechanics, which are already densely claimed by the top assignees.
Highly concentrated at the top, with a long tail below. The top 5 of 94 ranked assignees hold 66.5% of all 720 records, and the top 10 hold 79.7%. Past the top ten, filing volume drops sharply, with most of the remaining ranked assignees holding only a handful of records each — a classic pattern of a few large camera-module suppliers surrounded by a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
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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.