Wafer Level Optics & Molded Lens Patents: Top Companies 2026
- Concentration is moderate, not extreme. the five most active filers hold 32.2% of all 936 records in scope, and the top ten hold 45.1% — meaningful share, but well short of lockout.
- Filing accelerated into 2024. activity rose from 33 records in 2021 to 60 in 2024, an 82% increase over that three-year span, before the 2025-2026 count understates true filing due to publication lag.
- Optical elements dominate the claim map. G02B covers 53.4% of the 936 records, more than double the next-largest class, with plastics-shaping classes B29D and B29C each near 18%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (33 records) with 2024 (60) — 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 936 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Wafer level optics and molded lens patents cover the manufacturing side of miniature optics: replicating lens arrays across a wafer, controlling replication accuracy and surface form error, managing mold lifetime in glass and plastic molding, and holding stacking alignment tight enough for multi-element camera modules. The search scope pulls 936 published records from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, spanning both the optical design side and the process side of the same problem: getting a lens shape to repeat, cheaply, at wafer or panel scale.
The dataset sits at the intersection of optics and materials processing, which shows up directly in the IPC mix: over half the records touch optical elements and systems, while plastics-shaping and glass-shaping classes each account for close to a fifth. That split matters for freedom-to-operate work, because a single molded-lens claim can be blocked from either the optics side or the process side.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 936-record corpus: activity by year, and the IPC subclasses those records fall into. Because a record can carry more than one classification, the technology shares add up to more than 100%.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from 36 in 2017 to a peak of 60 in 2024, including the +82% run between 2021 and 2024. The 2025 and 2026 figures are not a decline — publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent two years are still filling in.
IPC subclass distribution
G02B (optical elements and systems) touches 53.4% of the 936 records, making it the dominant class by a wide margin. B29D and B29C, the plastics-shaping classes, each sit near 18%, and C03B/C03C glass classes each cover roughly 8-9%, marking the split between optical-design claims and process claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 936 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wafer Level Optics and Molded Lenses with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wafer level optics and molded lenses and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and citation record
Head-mounted display (HMD) with spatially-varying retarder optics
A head-mounted display, or other near-to-eye display, incorporates optics that include a spatially-varying retarder (SVR). The SVR may be manufactured with a correction factor applied thereto in order to compensate for one or more manufacturing errors that are exhibited in a molded lens and/or a polarizing beam splitter included in the optics of the system.Filed by Valve Corporation, published 2021-03-11 as US20210072533A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20220066456A1 | Obstacle recognition method for autonomous robots | 761 |
| 2 | US20110227487A1 | Light emitting display with light mixing within a film | 435 |
| 3 | US20110255303A1 | Illumination device comprising a film-based lightguide | 384 |
| 4 | US7991257B1 | Method of manufacturing an optical composite | 354 |
| 5 | US20110273906A1 | Front illumination device comprising a film-based lightguide | 324 |
| 6 | US20130155723A1 | Replaceable lightguide film display | 301 |
| 7 | US20220026920A1 | Light weight and real time slam for robots | 266 |
| 8 | US20200134773A1 | Machine vision systems, illumination sources for use in machine vision systems, and components for use in the… | 249 |
| 9 | US20020087047A1 | Miniature endoscope system | 243 |
| 10 | US20110277361A1 | Sign comprising a film-based lightguide | 233 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the concentration, growth and classification figures above.
Share is real but not a lockout
The five most active filers combine for 32.2% of all 936 records in scope, and the top ten reach 45.1%. That leaves more than half the corpus held outside the ranked leaders — enough room for a well-drafted claim to clear, provided it avoids the dense zones described below.
Growth is recent, not historical
Filing volume rose from 33 records in 2021 to 60 in 2024, an 82% increase over three years and the field's peak year so far. Momentum figures for individual leaders in 2025-2026 read as flat or negative, but that reflects publication lag rather than a real slowdown.
Optics claims outnumber process claims
G02B, covering optical elements and systems, appears in 53.4% of the 936 records — more than double B29D or B29C, the plastics-shaping classes each near 18%. A filer working purely on molding process improvements is operating in a smaller, less crowded slice of the same field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wafer level optics and molded lenses, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, Inc. | MGC Filsheet Co., Ltd. | 58 |
| Heraeus Quarzglas GmbH & Co. KG | Shin-Etsu Quartz Products Co., Ltd. | 18 |
| Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, Inc. | WINTEC INC | 17 |
| MGC Filsheet Co., Ltd. | WINTEC INC | 17 |
| Flex Lighting II, LLC | NICHOL ANTHONY J | 6 |
| Flex Lighting II, LLC | COLEMAN ZANE | 6 |
| Azumo Inc. | SMETANA DAVID A | 2 |
| Corning Incorporated | WELLER MARK OWEN | 1 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairing linking a materials supplier and its optical-sheet affiliate — a pattern consistent with joint development between a resin or glass producer and a components maker rather than arm's-length licensing.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span optics majors, materials suppliers and a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum for several named leaders reads as flat, which is consistent with publication lag rather than retreat from the field.
A single filer well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 101 records, well clear of fifth place at 34 and tenth place at 19 — a steep drop-off after the leader that flattens quickly into a long tail.
A crowded but not dominant mid-tier
Between fifth and tenth place, record counts fall from 34 to 19, indicating a mid-tier of active filers rather than a second dominant player. This is the group most likely to be actively defending or extending claims year over year.
Materials suppliers pair with component makers
The strongest co-assignee pairing in the data links a resin/materials supplier with its film or sheet-focused affiliate at 58 shared records, pointing to integrated supply-chain filing rather than independent competition on that particular claim set.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, Inc. | 0 | — |
| MGC Filsheet Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Corning Incorporated | 0 | — |
| Canon Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Flex Lighting II, LLC | 0 | — |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company | 0 | -100% |
| Seagate Technology LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The figures above describe where claims already sit. The next steps are about testing a specific filing or design against that map.
Check a draft claim against the crowded classes
If a new claim touches G02B alongside B29C or B29D, it is entering the two most heavily claimed zones in this corpus at once — worth a closer prior-art pass before filing.
Run a claim check in EurekaTrack the mid-tier filers, not just the leader
The fifth-to-tenth place filers are closer in volume to each other than to the leader, and are the group most likely to be actively prosecuting new applications right now.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaRevisit white space once 2025-2026 fills in
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the under-claimed branches identified here should be re-checked once the most recent two years of filings finish publishing.
Explore the full dataset in EurekaCommon questions
The search scope combines wafer level optics, molded lens and glass molding terminology with process-control terms like replication accuracy, mold lifetime, birefringence, surface form error, stacking alignment and cost per lens. This means the corpus captures both the optical-design side of miniature lens arrays and the manufacturing-process side of getting a lens shape to replicate reliably at scale. It excludes general camera-module patents that do not touch these specific manufacturing or optical-quality terms.
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies, with the leader holding 101 records against 34 at fifth place and 19 at tenth — a steep early drop-off followed by a long tail. Combined, the top five hold 32.2% of all 936 records in scope and the top ten hold 45.1%, so the field has real but not overwhelming concentration. The mix includes established optics and electronics majors alongside specialist materials suppliers.
Filing volume rose from 33 records in 2021 to a peak of 60 in 2024, an 82% increase over that three-year span, indicating active growth through the last fully-reported year. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a real slowdown. Treat 2024 as the most recent year that can be read as a complete picture.
The IPC composition shows G02B optical elements claims covering 53.4% of the 936 records, far ahead of the plastics- and glass-shaping classes that each sit near 8-18%. Sub-areas tied to process control and tolerance management — mold lifetime monitoring, birefringence control across stacked wafer lenses, and cost-per-lens process economics — show up less densely than the core optical-element claims. These process-adjacent zones are worth a closer prior-art check before assuming they are occupied.
Citation counts accumulate over time, so records published a decade ago inside a searched corpus have simply had more opportunities to be cited than recent filings. The most-cited records in this dataset date back to the early 2010s, which reflects their age and influence on later filings rather than their current commercial relevance. A newer filing with few citations may still be more relevant to a current design question than an older, heavily-cited one.
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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.