LIDAR Is On The RADAR

Palo Alto based Luminar founded in 2012 has announced that it will be listed on the Nasdaq with an enterprise value of US$2.9 billion. Luminar partners with a number of the world's major car companies, including Volvo which announced in May, an integration of Luminar tech into its global vehicle platform.

Lidar sensors are critical to advancing autonomous driving. It is not just Luminar who is developing technology in the space. In fact, our landscape analysis on Lidar sensors shows vigorous patenting activity in this technology: more than 10,000 active patent families and more than 3,600 patent owners. The top five owners Bosch, Ford, Chinese Academy Of Sciences, GM and Denso own 11% of the total active patent families in Lidar Sensors.

Lidar Sensors: Active Patent Families by Organisation (source: Cipher)

It is interesting to see the rapid increase in publication activity by the two Chinese start-ups; RoboSense and Hesai Technology, compared to the top owners Bosch and GM. Hesei Technology, in particular, received in May 2019 the "Open Bosch Award" for best start-up collaboration in open innovation.

Lidar Sensors: Patent Families by Publication Date and by selected Organisations (source: Cipher)

Focusing our attention on the publication activity in Lidar Sensors technology, our analysis shows an increasing filing growth trend with a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33% between 2010 and 2019.

Lidar Sensors: Patent Families by Publication Date (source: Cipher)

For more information on who owns what and where in the Lidar Sensors space, access Cipher via your subscription or find out more about the Cipher Automotive taxonomy  or find out more about how we can help you with Competitive Intelligence or Benchmarking

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