CPC technology class · G03

G03C — Photosensitive Materials FOR Photographic Purposes

Photosensitive materials for photographic purposes ; photographic processes, e.g. cine, x-ray, colour, stereo-photographic processes; auxiliary processes in photography. 231 US utility patents granted 2015–2025, with the leading assignees and year-by-year filing trajectory.

231
US patents granted
G03
Parent CPC class
20
Active assignees
-56%
5-yr velocity
Top assignee: Transitions Optical, Ltd. (25 patents)

CPC subclass G03C — PHOTOSENSITIVE MATERIALS FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC PURPOSES ; PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES, e.g. CINE, X-RAY, COLOUR, STEREO-PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES; AUXILIARY PROCESSES IN PHOTOGRAPHY — covers 231 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025 according to USPTO PatentsView records. This subclass sits within the broader CPC class G03 (PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY), one of roughly 250 top-level technology categories in the Cooperative Patent Classification system jointly maintained by the USPTO and the European Patent Office. At the subclass level, four-character codes like G03C give the most practical resolution for tracking a specific technology domain without losing sight of adjacent filings. Every grant here has been classified by a USPTO examiner based on the technical disclosure in the patent specification.

The competitive landscape in G03C is shaped by 20 distinct companies actively filing in this space. Transitions Optical, Ltd. leads with 25 patents, followed by AcuFocus, Inc. at 30 grants and DataLase Ltd. at 15. Concentration at the top of the leaderboard indicates whether this technology area is dominated by a handful of incumbents or fragmented across many filers — a useful signal for investors evaluating competitive moats and for product teams mapping freedom-to-operate risk.

Filing trajectory matters as much as static counts. The yearly series on this page plots grants from 2015 through 2025, highlighting whether innovation in G03C is accelerating, plateauing, or cooling. Technology areas with rising post-2020 activity often reflect emerging markets or new platform shifts, while declining filings can signal mature domains where incremental improvement has slowed. Researchers, licensing professionals, and competitive-intelligence teams use these patterns — together with the top-assignee distribution — to decide where to invest, where to license, and where to avoid entanglement. All counts on this page come directly from USPTO PatentsView and reflect US granted utility patents only.

Is G03C innovation accelerating?

US utility-patent grants per year in G03C, 2015–2025 — recent five years are down 56% versus 2015–2019.

01020304050 20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025 7

Who leads G03C?

The 12 most active assignees in PHOTOSENSITIVE MATERIALS FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC PURPOSES ; PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES, e.g. CINE, X-RAY, COLOUR, STEREO-PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES; AUXILIARY PROCESSES IN PHOTOGRAPHY — wider bars mean more grants

patents

What this shows Transitions Optical is the most active filer in G03C, holding 25 of the 231 patents in this class. Concentration at the top signals how contestable this technology area is for new entrants.

Source USPTO PatentsView — granted utility patents As of 2015–2025 grant years
View data table

About This Class

CPC subclass G03C belongs to class G03.

231 patents were granted in this class between 2015 and 2025.

20 companies actively patent in this space.

Classification System

Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a hierarchical patent classification system used by the USPTO and EPO.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CPC class G03C?
CPC subclass G03C covers PHOTOSENSITIVE MATERIALS FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC PURPOSES ; PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES, e.g. CINE, X-RAY, COLOUR, STEREO-PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSES; AUXILIARY PROCESSES IN PHOTOGRAPHY. It belongs to CPC class G03 (PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY). The Cooperative Patent Classification is a hierarchical system used by the USPTO and European Patent Office to categorize patents by technology.
How many patents have been filed in G03C?
231 US utility patents were granted in CPC subclass G03C between 2015 and 2025, based on USPTO PatentsView data.
Which company holds the most patents in G03C?
Transitions Optical, Ltd. leads G03C with 25 patents, making it the most active assignee in this technology area.
How is patent data for G03C collected?
Patent data comes from USPTO PatentsView, a public research dataset maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It covers all US granted utility patents and assigns CPC codes based on the technology described in each patent.
What is the difference between CPC class and subclass?
A CPC class (e.g., G03) is a broad technology category. Subclasses like G03C provide finer granularity within that category. PlainPatent organizes data at the subclass level (4-character codes) for the most useful view of technology domains.

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Explore the patent dataset

Data sourced from USPTO PatentsView — official U.S. government patent data. See our methodology for computation details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainPatent Editorial