Emerging Trends in Photonics: A Patent-Landscape Cartography of Eight Fast-Growing Domains
How is intellectual property shifting across eight of photonics' fastest-growing fields: who is filing, where, and where the whitespace remains? A patent-landscape read of the emerging trends, with two domains analysed in-house by TechnoGenesis.
This presentation surveys eight of the fastest-emerging trends in photonics. They are silicon photonics and co-packaged optics; photonic computing for artificial intelligence; quantum photonics and quantum key distribution (QKD); metasurfaces and flat optics; automotive LiDAR and optical sensing; hollow-core fibre; augmented-reality (AR) waveguide displays; and biophotonics, particularly optical coherence tomography (OCT) and wearable optical bio-sensors. For each domain, TechnoGenesis examines the intellectual-property picture: who is filing patents, in which countries, how fast activity is growing, and where thinly-patented, high-value whitespace remains.
The trends are illustrated with preliminary patent-family data, drawn from TechnoGenesis analysis using Minesoft Origin and from published landscape reports. The figures are indicative, intended to convey direction and relative scale, not precise numbers.
Three cross-cutting signals emerge. First, filing volume has shifted toward China, which accounts for roughly 40–60% of published activity in several of the emerging domains. Yet the United States and Europe still hold most international, multi-jurisdiction families. Filing volume and filing quality tell different stories. Second, artificial-intelligence infrastructure is the main demand engine. It pulls co-packaged optics, photonic computing and hollow-core fibre forward together. Third, the domains are converging: metasurfaces feed both LiDAR and AR, and silicon photonics underpins both quantum and computing.
Together, these eight trends form one clear, high-level map: where photonics is growing fastest, and where patent activity is concentrating. The aim is to help researchers, R&D teams and IP professionals see which domains are accelerating - and where room for new, protectable inventions remains.
Keywords: patent landscape, photonics, emerging technologies, patent-family analytics, IP strategy, technology S-curves, whitespace analysis.
Selected highlights, including TechnoGenesis's own S-curve patent analysis, are available to download below. Domain specific analysis available on request