DIGITAL BIOMETRICS: Patenting Trends and its Impact on Electronics and Cellular Industry
By Rohan Turior
Executive Summary:
This article offers an in-depth examination of digital biometrics in the mobile and electronics sector, with a specific focus on patenting trends and technologies related to facial, fingerprint, voice, retina, and iris detection systems. Upon analyzing a comprehensive dataset of 4,217 patents, it reveals a notable increase in patent filings, highlighting the rising significance of biometrics in this industry. Additionally, this article serves as a commentary on the prevailing issue of patent exploitation within the mobile and electronics sector, shedding light on the potential consequences and implications of this practice. It aims to provide valuable insights into the current state of biometrics patents and their impact on the industry.
Introduction:
Digital detection techniques, also known as digital biometrics, deal with the science of verifying and identifying physiological and behavioural traits of any individual. Physiological biometrics, such as fingerprint, hand geometry, iris, retinal, vein, speech and face imaging, are derived from direct measurements of the human body that may uniquely recognise the individual. Behavioural biometrics are determined by a person’s speech, signature, walk, writing etc. Although it may appear that biometric systems are a very recent concept, however, the use of biometrics has been around us for a long time (around 500 BC).
Digital biometric technologies are the solution to secure identification and human verification. The application of biometric systems can be found in different sectors like Government (Central, State and Local); defence purposes as well as commercial ones. Multimedia- based biometric technology is already having a significant positive impact on government IDs, retail transactions, law enforcement, and safe financial activities. In recent times, biometric systems have entered the mainstream markets, like facial or vocal or fingerprint recognition on smartphones, banking or UPI apps have become a necessary part of our day-to-day life. Incorporation of multiple biometrics traits in the authentication system reduces the chances of identity theft as well as the chances of abnormalities in the process, which is why multimodal systems are more reliable as they capture more biometric traits with the help of multiple sensors.
Scope:
This report encompasses the data related to patenting trends and technology analysis for digital detection technologies including facial, fingerprint, voice, retina, and iris detection systems. To determine ongoing patterns, we examined 4217 relevant patents, both active and dormant.
Patent Analysis:
In this section, we have analysed 4217 related patents (active or inactive) which aids in the identification of patent filing and technological trends and assignee-specific activity in patented technologies. Additionally, it demonstrated a wide range of technical applications claimed in a patent dataset.
For better analysis purposes, we have divided the whole result set into active (alive) and inactive (dead) patents and also showed the difference between various trends of the two sets. This section is helpful in indicating regional insight as well as current and future market leaders in biometric systems having choke points as well as mostly cited patents.
Patent Filing Trend:
Filing trend of active (alive) patents from the year 2004 to the year 2023:
Figure 1: The chart shows the filing and grant trends in the technology space in recent years. The year shown in the chart is the calendar year and the applications are plotted by their filing date and the grants are plotted by their published date
Filing trend of inactive (dead) patents from the year 1927 to the year 2023:
Figure 2: The chart shows the filing and the grant trends in the technology space in recent years. The year shown in the chart is calendar year and the applications are plotted by their filing date and the grants are plotted by their published date
Based on the graphical representation of filing trends it is clearly evident that an increasing number of patents are being filed in this domain. Hence, it would be safe to conclude that this technological field is gaining more significance over the years.
Regional Insights:
China is a dominant leader in biometrics, and has received over 1000 patents throughout the years. China is followed by the United States, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. China has become one of the global leaders in manufacturing components for biometric sensors and semiconductors in the world, as well as the rapid adoption of cutting-edge technologies in day-to-day government and public operations, which is driving the market expansion in China.
Figure 3: Global Geo-protection growth over the years
Key industry players’ insight:
BOE Technology Group Co. LTD holds the most patents. This corporation is a large electronic component manufacturer, with a focus mainly on smart IoT systems, smart medications, interface devices, and engineering integration. BOE has created TFT large-area fingerprint identification products based on mature semiconductor technology, including optical and capacitive technological solutions that are extensively employed in consumer electronics, security, finance, and other industries.
Figure 4: The graph shows the top current owners of the records. The current owner is the parent organisation of the current assignee.
Furthermore, other market players include Samsung Group, Taiwan Semiconductor MFG Co LTD, Panasonic Holding Corp, Sumitomo Group, Hon Hai Precision IND Co LTD, Tianma Microelectronic Co LTD, BBK Electronic Corp, TCL Group Co LTD, Ǫisda Corp, Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Tech Co LTD, China Wafer Level CSP Co LTD, Kla Corp, Furukawa Co Group, Nikon Corp, LG Corp, Hitachi Group, Mitsubishi Group, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc and others. Many of these businesses have built their facilities in different emerging market regions which helps in flourishing the industry.
Companies having choke points:
In the field of biometrics, companies such as Remot3 IT INC, Avery Dennison Corp, BOE Technology Group Co Ltd, Cornell University Research Foundation, Doheny Eye Institute California, Fotonation Corp & FKA Digitaloptics Corp, Global Graphene Group INC, Hitachi Group, IBM Corp, and Infineon Technology AG have some important choke points. Having a choke point in any technological field implies having firms that already have significant patents in the biometrics technology domain. It is helpful to comprehend, that if there are several choke points or firms in the technology of interest, the corporation should proceed with caution, although minor choke points can be considered as potential investment opportunities.
Figure 5: The graph shows companies who already hold important patents around the technology area
In today’s scenario companies like to have more choke points which can very well be fate-determining variables.
Technical Analysis:
Based on Biometric Technology, the global market is segmented into different types like face, voice, signature, iris, fingerprint, hand geometry recognition and others. The majority of the patents are related to fingerprint recognition systems as fingerprint recognition provides more convenient, secure and faster ways of verifying user identities. Fingerprints are important as two individuals can never have similar fingerprints, even in cases of identical twins – who share the same DNA pattern. Fingerprint recognition systems are used in different sub-technical fields like electronic devices; recognition modules; fingerprint recognition modules; recognition chips; fingerprint recognition chips and sensors [fig. 6].
Figure 6- The Graph visualize the different technology topics that are mentioned in the result set.
In recent years, the use of multimodal identification systems, which incorporate numerous behavioural and physiological features to recognise and authenticate people, has grown in popularity, resulting in improved accuracy levels.
Conclusion
Biometrics became increasingly popular with end users, government, and public sectors following the pandemic due to no-touch interactions, access control, and crowd management.
We may conclude from the foregoing that biometrics will be more important than ever in the near future.
New firms, such as REMOT3 IT INC and Doheny eye institutes, have substantial choke points that can be proven to be some key technical steps in the future development of biometric technology. From the parts above, it is simple to establish current trends in the field of biometrics as well as identify current or upcoming market leaders.
About The Author
Rohan Turior is a seasoned Intellectual Property Management Leader and a well-versed Technocrat with more than 17 years of rich and insightful experience in Innovation, IP protection, problem-solving, Patent Circumvention and technology management. He is Partner, Patent Attorney at Innoips – Innovation & IP Services.
